Ancient Artefacts
by StardustOwl
Summary: Willow is drawn to a strange Amulet in a museum exhibition. Unfortunately the Organisation want the artifacts too and will stop at nothing to get them back. Better than it sounds please R
1. The Amulet

**Ancient Artefacts**

_**Hi, this is the first fan fiction I ever wrote and I spent ages trying to figure out whether it needed first or third person and forgot about it temporarily, so therefore it's now my 3**__**rd**__**, but first for Huntik though. Sorry, it's a bit short but hopefully the chapters will be longer from now on. Please R & R.**_

**Chapter One-The Amulet**

The girl just stood there, looking at the strange amulet lying in one of the half-unpacked boxes that would soon make up the Museum's new exhibit.

Cautiously she ducked under the barrier and headed towards it. It called out for her _Willow, Willow,_ it whispered._ Come closer Willow. _Willow was so caught up in its spell that she didn't even notice anyone else until she stretched out to touch it and a smartly dressed museum employee grabbed it and pulled it away from her so quickly that her shoulder-length, wavy, blonde hair actually moved like there was a strong breeze or possibly a small tornado.

She snapped abruptly out of the trance-like feeling.

"This area, it is off limits." The woman said primly. "You know what that means?" she continued patronisingly.

Willow was tempted to say 'no!' but she didn't think that would get her anywhere good, so… "I'm a really enthusiastic historian and I…" She began to lie but trailing off, sensing the woman didn't buy it, which was probably due to her messy shirt, muddy jeans and totally wrecked trainers. She had been practicing her climbing and gymnastics at the park earlier when her mum rang and told her she needed a leaflet from the museum. At that time Willow didn't exactly see the point of going home and changing.

"You know it's a crime to steal valuable objects," The woman smiled belittlingly and she inwardly cursed at her curiosity. She just had to go into that room to find out what was going on didn't she? Damn, she couldn't let the police get involved again.

"Of course!" Willow replied and sprinted towards the exit, grabbing the cause of her problems and another leaflet about the exhibit.

There was definitely something strange about that amulet, and she vowed to find out what.

"Right team, we have a new mission." Dante Veil stated as everyone gathered round the Holotone.

"What is it?" asked Lok enthusiastically. "An ancient artefact in a 5000 year old temple in Peru?"

"Not quite as exciting as that I'm afraid," answered Dante and grinned at Lok. "Our mission is to retrieve finds discovered by archaeologists recently in India, they've been transferred to a museum in England and it's our job to get to them before the Organisation do."

"So all we have to do is argue with the museum staff over a suitable price for the objects," Sophie clarified.

"Fantastic." Zhalia said drily.

"If you don't want to, you needn't come," offered Sophie, hoping to go on at least one mission in which Zhalia wasn't involved.

"Nice try, but no chance!" she replied, smiling at Sophie's annoyance.

"Right then, it's settled," Dante finished. "Now get some sleep as our plane leaves at 8am tomorrow morning. We should reach London by midday so we will have plenty of time to reach the museum. All going well, we can deliver the artefacts to the Foundation before the day's over."

Sophie frowned. "Seems simple,"

"It might not be," Zhalia said.

"Yeah, knowing the suits there's bound to be some complications." Lok reasoned.

"Be careful Lok," Cherit warned. "It seems like you almost want to run into the Organisation!"

"Don't worry Cherit!" laughed Lok. "I'll just take this mission as a welcome break from them."

Later that evening Zhalia walked into her apartment hoping to get an early night for once, something which had seemed practically impossible since she'd joined Dante's team.

As she climbed into bed her mobile began to ring, she sighed and went to answer it.

"Ah, Zhalia my dear," Klaus said as she pressed the phone to her ear.

"What is it?" she asked wearily.

"The Organisation have their eye on an ancient book of curses, I gather the foundation will be sent along to collect everything. Ignore that, the other finds aren't important, other members of the Organisation will be sent along to retrieve those, but I have a feeling that the book would greatly help my experiments."

"Alright," Zhalia agreed. "Don't worry, I'll get it for you."

"Zhalia,"

"Yes?"

"Don't fail me or blow your cover," he warned.

"When have I ever done that?" she asked, careful not to sound aggravated by his words, which was difficult.

"Good point, I am lucky to have you," Klaus smiled. "Well done Zhalia, you are definitely one of the best spies the Organisation has ever seen…"

Sometime later Zhalia lay awake staring at the ceiling, somehow it felt wrong to lead Dante and the others (okay maybe not Sophie) into a trap, but her job was to infiltrate the team, she reminded herself, not to get sentimental about them. Thinking about the consequences never got anyone anywhere and besides, given their track record, it was seriously unlikely they'd even get hurt.

The next day Willow was finding it very hard to concentrate. Maths was not exactly easy on the best of days and the fact that the new exhibit would be opening today made it damn-near impossible.

She couldn't be bothered to listen to the teachers even in gymnastics, where she had been dying to try out the new apparatus for weeks

By lunch time she couldn't take it anymore, she had to see the opening.

As Willow climbed over the fence she felt totally free and independent, she would find the amulet and would understand what it meant. She'd never skipped school before, she'd been too afraid of getting caught, still, first time for everything. Besides, it certainly beat the chemistry test that her friends were having to endure.

_**So, what do you think, reviews would be greatly appreciated :D**_


	2. The Curse Book

_**Disclaimer: If I owned Huntik, series three would be out already (so would be series 4 and 5)**_

_**Last time I said I'd make my chapters longer, on reflection they will all probably be about this size as I have other stories to work on and this means I have more frequent updates and less frequent writers block.**_

**The Curse Book**

She looked at her watch, racing toward the museum, Willow had had to dodge three policemen and it had seriously put her behind schedule.

However when she reached the museum there didn't appear to be any opening ceremonies. In its place were screaming adults fleeing the building, from which there was some kind of fight going on inside. Strange lights illuminated the shadows of the figures and she could hear strange words being yelled.

Willow snuck into the building and hid behind the large marble desk to review her options. She could hardly tiptoe into the room and through the door with so many people about.

She glanced at the wall to the side of her and smiled in amazement. Behind this desk was a convenient air-vent which led to the next room, behind the cabinet where the amulet was being held. She almost laughed at loud at her good luck, she swore this kind of thing only happened in films!

After about five minutes using a combination of her fingers, nails and (now broken) biros, Willow succeeded to force the grate open. Leaving her schoolbag behind she crawled inside until she got to the end, it was more difficult than in films but she still managed it.

The grate at the other end was very loose compared to the first and she could rattle it a lot. She figured one good kick ought to take it down and the chance of anyone hearing was very small, given that they were too wrapped up in yelling,

"Augerfrost!"

"Raypulse!"

Which was quite a strange fighting technique when she thought about it, but there wasn't much time, so reluctantly she forced her attentions to getting out of the vent.

Willow crawled on her hands and knees until she reached the back of the cabinet, figuring out where the amulet should be in relation to everything else.

She braced herself, jumped up and grabbed the amulet, somehow managing to bring down an old book with it. She leant against the back of the cabinet, breathing heavily.

What Willow had just seen was extraordinary. People were throwing what she could only assume was some sort of Magic at each other and they were being helped by weird creatures of all different shapes and sizes, who were also doing strange things! What the hell was going on?

It was surreal, but somehow she doubted she was going mad.

She made her way back to the air-vent, pulling the grate back in behind her and crawling back to her schoolbag, stuffing what she had just taken inside and sprinting out of the building, trying to ignore the guilt that suddenly rushed up inside of her.

Willow had meant to get the artifact, not become a museum thief; unfortunately one couldn't go without the other. However, she consoled herself with the fact that that the weirdoes in the room would have probably broken the amulet anyway, so she technically was really saving it.

They arrived at the museum at 1.30, a little later than planned, but that couldn't be helped.

"Dante?" Sophie asked. "Do you really think they'll give us the finds when they've been so heavily advertised, especially as the opening's today!"

"That's just something we'll have to find out." Dante replied grimly.

They walked in through the door.

A scene of chaos met their eyes.

"Ah, Dante Vale," Defoe sneered. "We were just wondering when you'd show up,"

"Pity you didn't collect the artifacts sooner, then you might have had a chance of actually getting them for once." he shot back.

"So, what's the Professor going to say once you've told him you failed again?" Zhalia asked confidently.

"I won't," Defoe smiled, indicating to the left of him. "One step forwards and let's just say, they're in a bit of trouble,"

All the smartly dressed museum officials looked pleadingly at the four of them.

"Oh okay then," Dante smiled, taking a step backwards. At the same moment, Gareon turned visible and shot an energy blast at Defoe's back.

"Touchram!"

"Raypulse!"

"Dragonfist!"

"Augerfrost!"

The team yelled and took down the remaining suits.

"Go now!" Lok told everyone, who didn't think twice and fled the building within a few seconds.

"Guess we won't be doing any bargaining then," Sophie commented as they walked towards the exhibit.

Defoe shot an augerfrost at Lok and he smashed into a cupboard, groaning as he made impact, and rolled onto the floor.

"Lok!" Sophie cried in alarm, but the other two were too worried about fighting the suits who were loading the finds into crates.

"Sorry, but they're not yours," Zhalia smirked and shot a raypulse at one, quickly dodging their counter attack.

Lok, Sophie, Defoe and the suits from the entrance hall joined in and chaos ensued…

Zhalia glanced towards the cabinet. "The book!" she cried out in alarm.

"What did you say?" Dante asked curiously, whilst slamming a suit into a wall.

"The artifacts!" she corrected, gesturing to the cabinet.

Dante frowned, neither side had managed to get anywhere near that side of the room without being attacked by the other, however, he quickly brushed the thought aside as the suit aimed a punch at his head. "Zhalia, look out!" he yelled and she quickly flipped backwards, narrowly avoiding a bolflare.

Zhalia growled in frustration, she needed that book and convincing the suits to give it to her would be inconvenient, not to mention the chance that it could blow her cover, besides, she was certain that Dante was right, none of the suits had gone near that area in the last five minutes.

Catching onto the meaning of their conversation, they hadn't exactly whispered it; a suit looked over at the same area. "Hey, where have those things gone?" she yelled and the other suits stared the empty space.

"Give them back!" Defoe demanded.

"Why don't you?" Dante countered and shot another raypulse at him.

_So, unless they're bluffing, that rules out the organisation taking it, _Zhalia debated. _What if it can turn invisible? _She made a mental note to check the security footage later, but for now, there were other problems at hand…

_**Okay, so that's the second chapter done, what do you guys think? I know it's not long (and a bit rushed) but that's because the next chapter should be up in a few hours/ tomorrow after school, depending upon how much time I have. Please review!**_


	3. The Girl

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Huntik (or Playmobil for that matter.)**_

_**A lot of this story isn't part of my original plan, I forgot what that was, so I made a lot of this up on the spot, hopefully it doesn't sound too rushed. Thanks to my two utterly brilliant reviewers, anyone else want to follow their example (hint, hint) :D**_

**The Girl**

Willow flung open the door to her house and slammed it behind her, breathing heavily. She was being freaking paranoid for god's sake! She kept imagining people were following and she was absolutely certain the amulet was whispering to her, it didn't help that coming home had taken three hours after accidentally getting on the wrong bus.

"Mum?" her little brother yelled from his room the attic.

"No, it's Willow!" she replied, climbing the stairs so she could dump her schoolbag on her bed.

The sound of arguing came from her brother's room and Henry shouted for her again. "Willow, could you get up here and explain to this idiot why his tactics are _all _wrong!" She rolled her eyes and made her way into the loft.

After about five minutes she got bored and interrupted their 'heated discussion'. "Yes Ben, your idea of a surprise attack is right," she explained firmly. "But Henry is also correct, the guards will see you if you sneak in here. A better idea would be to come in from here and go along this corridor, to go to the throne room, and to shoot from here," she gestured to the large Playmobil castle, filled with assorted toys such as pterodactyls and fluffy lions. "Therefore, half your opponents, are taken out and the rest will be unprepared for your attack,"

"See, I said my sister was always right!" Henry said proudly to his five friends.

"I thought you said that was you?" one of them muttered before the window exploded.

They all screamed and flung themselves to the floor, Willow jumped in front of her brother and his friends, wincing as a few of the shards almost hit her.

"I must admit those were adequate tactics, you would make a good member of the Organisation," he smiled. The boys looked between the suit and Willow in amazement, too shocked to move. "But, I'm afraid I need the curse book, oh and the amulet too," he added as an afterthought.

"Your one of those freaks from the museum aren't you?" she asked.

"Glad to see I've come to the right address," he commented drily.

"Sure," she agreed, chucking the book at his face. "Run!" she yelled to Henry and his friends.

"And the Amulet?" he growled angrily, the book hadn't hit him, but it had been a close call.

"Sorry, don't have it," she lied cheerfully, checking to see that everyone was safely out of the attic.

"Is that so?" he asked fake-kindly and shot a boltfare at her, she rolled out the way and grabbed her brother's china piggy bank. She flung it at him…and about five others, now standing behind him, in the window. _Damn_

"Huh?" she asked as someone attacked her from behind, placing a hand over her mouth. "Salicti!" (a/n. salicti means willow in Latin) she bit his hand yelled helplessly to her amulet. It had been whispering to her non-stop after all, the least it could do was help her! To her surprise, a green woman appeared out of nowhere, she was tall, and glowed - especially her eyes and elaborately braided hair, and she wore a dress of willow leaves

She stared at her in amazement for a second before she was chucked roughly to the floor. "Brat!" the suit whose hand she'd just bit yelled. "Augerfrost!" he muttered and a ball of light appeared in his palm. Willow cringed in fear as she gazed up at him.

"Don't!" the first man said as a tiger like thing destroyed Salicti. Willow cried out in alarm, not expecting the painful sensation Salicti caused when she was destroyed. "Klaus said to take the girl with us if she could be a seeker or showed potential, which she definitely does, and I wish to question her on why she stole the finds, she could be working for someone" he smiled.

"No-way, you are _not_ kidnapping me!" Willow exclaimed. The man dropped the augerfrost by her head and she almost screamed out loud in alarm.

"If you don't we'll hurt your brother," the first told her calmly.

"Fine!" she agreed angrily. "But I ain't telling you anything!"

The man raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, I might tell you a bit," she decided after a moment's thought.

"Then let's go before any of the neighbours get suspicious," he ordered and she was injected with something before she realised what had happened.

"Hey, what the…hell….was…..that…..?" she demanded before she collapsed and her head hit the carpet.

One of the suits picked her up and carried her out of the window towards the black SUV.

Dante looked through the security footage with Lok and Sophie.

"Who's she?" Sophie asked.

"I have no idea," Dante replied. "But she stole the amulet and the book so we need to find her before the organisation does."

"But that'll take ages!" Lok complained.

"Yeah, but Guggenheim wants us to do on it, we're the top team after all," Sophie told him.

"We're lucky that there was a back-up copy of the footage," Dante put in, "Guggenheim has got some tech people running her face through all the social networking and then internet sites, it should be done in a day or two."

"Yeah, but the organisation have had at least a two hour head start than us," Lok pointed out. "Where's Zhalia?" he suddenly questioned.

"Still making a phone call," Dante answered absentmindedly, focusing on the screen.

"Still?" Sophie exclaimed. "Dante, I don't like it, I'm going to see what she's up to." She told him firmly.

"No," Dante instructed. "Zhalia has done nothing wrong and you honestly have nothing to be suspicious about Sophie, give her a break!" he pleaded.

"Zhalia," Klaus snapped. "You promised me you would get the book!"

"Sorry," she apologised. "There were…complications, a girl took it before I could get to it,"

"Yes, I know, I've seen the footage," he interrupted, "We know who she is and a few of my agents are currently tracking her down. Why did you not grab the book at the first opportunity possible? You fought clumsily, not up to your usual standard. You were hit unnecessarily three times and there were four possible chances that you could have immobilised some of them. What is wrong with you today, your standards have slipped since you started spying on the foundation, you haven't failed me for a long time!" he finished angrily.

Zhalia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I couldn't blow my cover, it would have seemed suspicious if I went straight for the book," she explained, knowing her excuse was lame. "So are you gonna get the curse book off this girl then?"

"Yes, which I wouldn't have had to do if you hadn't let me down. I am wasting my time looking for a teenager, when I should be working on deadcalm!"

"Relax, this will be fine," she said with fake-calmness. "You'll get to finish your experiment soon enough, you never know, this teenager may be useful. Why did she decide to steal it anyway?"

"My dear Zhalia, I don't know, but I intend to find out," he muttered darkly whilst Zhalia half-smiled, his anger with her had abated, she pushed the thought that he might possibly, no probably, this was Klaus she was talking about, experiment on the girl, not to mention his methods of finding out information couldn't be counted as pleasant.

_**Please review, more reviews I get, the faster I update!**_


	4. The Spy

_**Disclaimer: Again, I clearly don't own anything, if I did I wouldn't be 14 and in secondary school!**_

_**Hi, sorry for the late update, I had half of this written a few days ago, I just didn't have time to finish it. My plot's definitely different to how I thought it would originally be but finger crossed it turns out okay :D**_

**The Spy**

Willow woke slowly, trying to ignore the incredible pain in her neck and arm and how much her head hurt.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom she could see she was in some kind on dungeon, damp grey stone walls, iron bars over a window about 2m out of reach, puddles in between the cracks on the floor, yeah, you get the picture.

"Brilliant!" she murmured sarcastically. "I just _had _to take that stuff didn't I?" On second thoughts though, there was no way that she wouldn't have stolen it, it had completely put her under some sort of spell!

She thought back to the strange woman that had appeared, similar to the ones that the people at the museum had been fighting alongside. What had happened to her, she'd been destroyed, was she dead? Willow wasn't sure whether that would be a good thing or not, it was annoying and it had failed to protect her so now she was stuck here. On the other hand she felt lonely without her annoying voice whispering in her head; it was strangely comforting.

The crazy people from the attic probably had her now, what were they doing with her? If the woman was alive, that is.

Willow glanced up at the walls of her prison; in total there were five security cameras, and no blind spots, however there was a small en-suite, that was relatively clean and newish, and that didn't have any. Willow didn't know whether that was a bad thing or not. On one hand, it was somewhere where she could form a plan and no-one could spy on her, on the other, it probably indicated that she was going to be there a long time. Oh well, on the bright side, she had peace and quiet, her own room, a bed that was _semi_-comfortable and a bathroom. A bit of food and her stay probably wouldn't be too bad.

Zhalia stalked along the corridor, black hair flying out behind her and a scowl on her face. It was well past midnight and she had only just managed to slip away from Dante and the others, who had insisted on discussing the girl for hours after they had reached the hotel. The Huntik foundation still weren't anywhere near finding Willow, whereas Klaus had informed her at six in the evening that they successfully had the girl in their custody. She guessed she was lucky that some of the organisation had called in five minutes after her first conversation with Klaus saying that they were following a suspicious teenager. Her team might say that the Organisation would lose and that good would win, but in this situation, the Organisation was _way_ better than Huntik.

She was gonna get the girl to tell her everything, before anyone else got the chance to interrogate her. Then Klaus would see she wasn't losing her touch.

Angrily Zhalia pushed open the door with a bang and glared at Willow's sleeping form. Sleepily, she forced open her eyes and stared sleepily at Zhalia. "What the hell!" she screamed, flailing wildly as she backed up into a sitting position against the wall. Slowly she regained her composure as Zhalia looked at her with her eyebrows raised and a half-smile on her face.

"What do you want?" she asked defiantly, trying to hide the fear she felt, but not really managing it well, on account of how tired she was.

Suddenly a memory flashed across Zhalia's mind. Soon after she'd met Dante, Lok and Sophie she had bust a man from jail, she hadn't been able to get him to tell her anything, but Sophie had, after just a few kind words. _That could work,_ she mused, _probably better than hurting the kid would have done anyway. I am not being weak,_ she indignantly told her compassionate side, _I'm a spy, getting people to trust me is what I do, besides, her faith in me could come in handy in the future._

Smiling, she walked over to the bed and sat down opposite Willow, who looked at her distrustfully. 'See, a little compassion can go a long way!' She heard Dante's voice in her head, Zhalia sighed internally, she was meant to be infiltrating their team, not starting to like them, and, if she was completely honest (not that she ever would be), beginning to agree with them sometimes.

"You okay?" she asked Willow, alright, she hadn't quite got the hang of being kind to people, but she was definitely acting nicer than usual.

"Hmm, what do you think?" Willow snapped sarcastically, then bit her tongue and said more quietly. "I'm fine, thanks."

"Your family are gonna be fine, if that's what your worried about," Zhalia told her. "They are currently under police custody while they figure out who kidnapped you, and the Organisation can't be bothered to break in, they might tell you they've hurt them, but it's pointless and a waste of their time, if they do, they're lying," she finished bluntly, she may as well tell her that, it was a way to gain her trust and if it worked the benefits would far outweigh the drawbacks.

"Really?" she questioned sceptically. "Okay, who has kidnapped me, and what do they want?" Willow wasn't sure if she was allowed to ask questions but she wasn't waiting to find out.

"It's an organisation called, uh, The Organisation, well, the Huntik foundation, that's the people the Organisation fight, call us 'suits'. They want to know why you stole the amulet and the curse book, they think you might be a threat."

"They think _I'm _a threat, they should take a look at themselves!" she exclaimed wryly, and Zhalia smirked. "I dunno why I stole the stuff, I saw it yesterday, the day before yesterday actually, and it just called out to me I guess, and the curse book was an accident, it fell on me." Zhalia nodded, taking it all in, she didn't appear to be lying, but you couldn't always tell. "Wait did you just say us?" Willow panicked and sighed, she was so obviously a suit, who else would be here? She sighed, she had half-forgotten where she was and who the woman had evidently been! At least she had been nice, she had been expected to be tortured or something.

"Yeah?" Zhalia asked nonchalantly, relaxing back against the wall. "Problem?"

Willow bit her lip and shook her head, thinking hard. "Not really," she replied. "I just haven't had a good impression of them so far,"

"What is she doing?" Klaus demanded furiously, looking through the security cameras.

"Uh, I don't know sir," one of his men admitted. "But Zhalia was always very strong minded and has her own way of doing things; her plan will turn out all right,"

Klaus frowned. "No, I had a specific idea of how I was to get information out of the girl. What is wrong with her, ever since she started spying on the foundation Zhalia has been different!"

"Sir, with all due respect, she is a spy." another pointed out. "She could just be getting information out of her!"

"Well, let's go and find out shall we, and unless she has anything useful, I _will _be resorting to my _original _plan," he said through gritted teeth, stalking off towards Willow's cell.

"Oh, come on, they're not that scary!" Zhalia protested.

Klaus opened the door, fury clearly visible on his sunken eyes and sallow wrinkled skin, his monocle casting a strange shadow across his cheekbones.

"You were saying?" Willow laughed, raising her eyebrows, trying not to let the fear she felt shine through her eyes.

"Once you get to know them," Zhalia added.

_**So, what should happen to Willow, if you want something bad to happen please type bad, mostly not bad, type good, or something in the middle, type middle. Come on, it's not that hard, one word in fact!**_

_**Although I would be grateful if you added more detail.**_

_**Please review, it makes my day!**_


	5. The Test-Subject

_**Disclaimer: I don't own this!**_

_**Hi, sorry for the wait, I had no chance on Thursday and on Friday and Saturday my friend came round and showed me the entire (yes, all 11+ hours of the extended version) of Lord of the Rings. It was really good actually. I showed her the first episode of Huntik but she said it was confusing and that the Titans reminded her of Pokémon :(**_

_**I have twelve reviews (five for the last chapter) that is completely insane!**_

_**To my two guests:**_

_**STELLA: Thanks for the review, and I'm glad you like it, and your English was great, although if you or anyone else ever want to review in French that's fine too. To the question on whether this is going to be a Dante/Zhalia fic, well, it'll be like in the episodes, the romance is there, but in the background, not central to the storyline.**_

_**E: Well, you'll have to wait and see…find out by reading on…:D Thanks for the review!**_

_**Also, as I have given my guests a mention I feel like I should do it to everyone else. Although I have PMed you all thank you Nina Vale, xxRedshadowxx (especially as you gave me some really good inspiration for this chapter), ADLOCKandMYTHEA, STELLA, E and randompasserby19. You guys are all amazing/brilliant/fantastic/wonderful/more great adjectives.**_

**The Test-Subject**

"What is the meaning of this Zhalia?" Klaus asked coldly in German.

"I'm gaining information," she replied, equally icy.

"By making _friends_ with her?" he sneered.

"I'm not friends with some stupid kid!" she countered, trying not to sound completely furious at the fact that he didn't trust her. She hadn't done anything wrong in a while and wasn't about to mess up again and all of a sudden Klaus was treating her like she had no clue of what she was doing. "You doubt my methods?"

"Sometimes I wonder..." replied Klaus.

"Who is he?" Willow asked Zhalia, also speaking in German, then switched to English and directed her speech to Klaus. "You should have checked if I knew German _before_ you both started talking in it!"

"Sir," a suit broke the stunned silence tentatively. "It says here in her file that her father is German."

_I have a file?_ Willow panicked.

Looking back on things Willow decided that that had not been the smartest thing to say, although her father was German, she actually couldn't speak much, but she did have quite a convincing accent though. However she had got the gist that Zhalia was in some kind of trouble and had struggled to think of a way to successfully draw attention away from her new friend. Unfortunately, now they wouldn't speak in German in front of her, which would reduce the chances of learning any small bits of useful information that she could have translated. Urgh, this was so confusing!

"He's my father," Zhalia answered, speaking English again whilst Willow stared at her in surprise, that creepy guy did not strike her as the parenting type. "His name is Klaus and he's a top scientist for the Organisation. She was going to find out eventually!" she explained emotionlessly to Klaus who looked livid.

"Well Willow," he said fake kindly. "As Zhalia so helpfully explained, I am a scientist and I'll need your help for a little experiment I'm working on." Willow's eyes widened in fear and she subconsciously shrank back against the wall. Zhalia's face was a blank mask, by now this scene was incredibly familiar to her as this happened to most people that Klaus kidnapped, although as far as she could recall, she had never felt the need to supress any worry for any one of his test subjects before. _Am I starting to _like_ this kid?_ she wondered incredulously. _Damn Huntik foundation, giving me feelings, I don't_ need _feelings, friendship is_ pointless, remember_? Isn't it?_ She added less self-assuredly.

"What exactly does this experiment entail?" Willow asked calmly, pretending to be confident.

"It's just the effect of magic on the body." He replied dismissively. "For example, Seekers generally have more stamina, are stronger and have better jumping abilities, just to name a few, than normal people have. I want to see whether that is the effect of magic or not. Also I want to find out whether magic grows as you age, or whether you just gain more control."

"How long am I going to be here then?" Willow demanded.

"As long as necessary," he smiled patronisingly down at her and she repressed the urge to shiver slightly under his gaze.

"What?" she exclaimed, horrified. "Why didn't you experiment on her, she's your daughter?" she pointed at Zhalia.

Zhalia frowned. "Yeah, why didn't you?" she asked suspiciously.

"Because you were too great an asset, although I considered it, I couldn't risk anything happening to you if something went wrong," he snapped at her.

Zhalia nodded and watched Willow with her arms folded.

"So, shall we begin?" Klaus got out a syringe and passed it to one of the suits. Willow looked between Zhalia, the suits and Klaus in a panic.

"Just let them take some," Zhalia told her. "It's only dangerous if you try to resist."

Willow tried to calm her nerves as a suit held her in place and another injected the needle into her.

"Take her blood down to the Lab and analyse it," he ordered the one with the syringe. "Actually, no, you stay here, you take it instead." the suit nodded and quickly left the room. "Now to test your abilities, some of my agents said you were quite good," he muttered. "Fight him."

Willow looked in apprehension at the suit that had just injected her.

"Sir, with all due respect," the suit protested. "I am not very good, especially not with magic!"

"Precisely," Klaus explained. "This is a non-magic fight, first one to hold the other on the floor for ten seconds wins," Willow picked up her ears at this; she might just stand a chance this time.

Willow leapt towards him, taking him by surprise and the fight began, using a combination of gymnastics and her limited fighting abilities, she ducked and dodged around him for a good five minutes before she sat on him, blood running down her cheek, she smiled triumphantly when the ten seconds was up.

However, her happiness was short lived.

"Another sample, now!" Klaus instructed the breathless suit. He walked towards Willow, jamming it into her vein hard for making him lose. She winced in pain for a second but ignored it. No way was he getting satisfaction. The angry suit left the room and Klaus considered her for a moment. "I think it's time to use some of your magic," he told her. "Fight Zhalia, the same rules apply, except you can use your powers now,"

Willow stood stone still. "You want me to fight _Zhalia_?" she gasped. "I have no chance at all!"

"You'd better learn quickly then," Klaus replied indifferently.

Zhalia looked at him in shock for a second and then got up off the bed and walked over to Willow. "Shall we begin?"

Willow nodded and Zhalia sent a boltflare towards her. Willow ducked and tried to copy the spell, but only a wisp of light came out of her fingers. "Damn it!" she cursed and flung herself out of the way of another attack, landing hard on the stone floor. A flicker of remorse passed through Zhalia's face but she didn't stop. "Augerfrost, Raypulse!" she yelled, the second hit Willow square in the stomach and she fell to the ground in agony.

Zhalia walked over and pretended to apply pressure to her windpipe. "Don't fight or try to get up," she hissed. She didn't really understand why she was being nice to Willow. Actually she did, just didn't want to admit to herself that she was growing 'weak'. Willow pretended to struggle feebly against her grasp.

"Willow, overall you were more skilled than I had expected, apart from the lack of control of your magic," Klaus announced. "But I expected better Zhalia; you didn't attack with much force as usual,"

"Maybe 'cos I didn't want to accidently kill your test subject?" she said sarcastically to him. Klaus ignored her.

Willow groaned and sat up. "What now?" she questioned, longing for a break for at least a few hours.

"Now we scan you and compare your results to those of an experienced Seeker and a normal human. Take her to my lab."

_That does not sound good, _Willow worried as she was pulled from the room.

After failing to memorise the endless corridors Willow found herself being strapped into some kind of machine. She could barely move and she could feel various sensors and needles pricking into her skin. She stared at Zhalia, knowing that she wouldn't help her but still holding on to some vain hope.

"Don't worry, although it will hurt, this won't kill you," one of the suits that were standing nearby said nastily, catching her expression. "Klaus don't want you dead, _yet._"

"Ready," One of the scientists checked and Willow fought back tears of terror. Suddenly alarms blazed around the compound and everyone looked at the message flashing on the computer screen. _Dante Vale and his team have arrived. Do everything in your power to hold them off._

_Oh no! _Zhalia gasped, this could _not_ be happening.

"You saw the message, get out _now!_" she almost yelled at everyone else in the room, who promptly fled. Whether her skills were slipping or not, she was still one of the best fighters in the Organisation and a force to be reckoned with.

After checking they were all out of sight she quickly made her way over to Willow. "Listen to me Willow," she said desperately. "The Huntik foundation are coming to recue you. Don't worry…" she interrupted Willow who was about to speak. "They are the best at the Foundation and will not fail. They'll get you out of here. But the thing is, they don't know about my links to the Organisation and I'd prefer it if you didn't tell them anything."

"Why?" Willow demanded. "Whose side are you on anyway?"

"Uh, Huntik," she lied, although it didn't really feel like one.

Willow raised her eyebrows.

"Okay fine!" she admitted. "I've got to help Klaus 'cos he's my father and he adopted me when I was living on the streets, I owe him everything, but I would never, ever hurt anyone on my team, I swear it, on my life, on Klaus's life, on your life…"

"So these guys are your team?" Willow cut across.

"Yeah, I'm meant to be spying on them,"

"Meant?"

"I mean, I don't know what I mean, just tell me Willow, are you going to tell them or not?" she asked frantically.

"No," I won't, Willow shook her head, Zhalia may be on the wrong side, but she could sense that she was a nice person. Quickly Zhalia set to work untying her.

"_Zhalia!_" Dante yelled in surprise, running in through the door. Sophie smiled and stared at her, smirking triumphantly.

"Yeah?" she answered nonchalantly, pulling off the last band. "Could you guys stop staring at me, in case you haven't noticed, we're in an Organisation base and it might be a good idea to leave quickly." she walked over to a drawer and pulled out Salicti's amulet, tossing it over to Willow who quickly put it around her neck.

"Zhalia what are you doing here?" Lok queried, still looking at her in shock.

"Couldn't sleep, saw to suits sneaking about, they went in here, I followed and took a look around," she lied calmly.

"That was really dangerous, you could have been seriously hurt!" Lok exclaimed.

"I'm fine on my own," she responded. "I'm not the one who set off the alarms am I?"

Lok blushed, Zhalia had guessed right.

"Let's just get out of here, we can argue over this later," Dante said before Sophie could interrogate Zhalia as to why she was there, clearly still not believing her explanation.

_**So review? I got five last time, let's aim for six!**_


	6. The Rescuers'

_**Disclaimer:I don't own this :(**_

_**Hi, wasn't expecting to update so early but I went on a school trip so I wrote this on the coach, consequently it's a bit short (sorry), thanks for all the reviews again, they are greater than great!**_

_**E (guest) : Thanks for the review! Den and Harrison won't show up, or at least not in this story, as it is set in series 1, although if I feel like it I could write a sequel with them in. Out of your two options Lok is going to say "I don't know what's going on, but sure," :D Maybe he thought she snuck through vents or something seeing as he's very naive and trusting in the first season but he's not really going to search hard for an explanation, Sophie on the other hand...**_

"I still don't think we should trust her!" Sophie moaned for approximately the 100th time, sitting on the floor, and resting her head against the arm of the sofa.

**The Rescuers**

"For the last time, all Zhalia ever did was help me out of there," Willow sighed, lounging around on the sofa, switching her gaze from Sophie, her phone (which she was using to text her fretting parents) and a book that she was meant to be reading on amulets.

It was two days after Willow had been rescued from Klaus's base and the foundation had managed to convince the police to keep placing her family under protection but had assured her parents, that with their security, Willow would be safer with the Foundation. As a consequence she was now relaxing in the front room of Dante's house in Venice, listening to Dante sparring with Lok, dismissing all Sophie's suspicions about Zhalia and pretending not to know that Zhalia hadn't gone for a walk, she was currently having an urgent meeting with Klaus instead. Zhalia apologised that she hadn't know what it was about exactly, however she assumed it probably concerned Willow. She was grateful that Zhalia had decided to warn her about that though, she liked being a temporary part of Dante's team and felt no inclination to be captured by the Organisation again. After a long conversation at about three in the morning (after making sure that no one could overhear) Zhalia had explained everything that was going on in much greater detail and Willow now knew how strongly Zhalia felt about her loyalty to the Organisation, so she was happy that she had told her she was going to a meeting at all.

"Sophie, quit moaning about Zhalia," Lok complained, guessing what they had just been taking about. "I like her, and besides, she's never done anything to hurt us!"

"Lok's words are indeed wise Sophie," Cherit advised. "You shouldn't judge people so harshly, especially without proof,"

"Oh come on! You don't really believe she got in there undetected do you?" argued Sophie in disbelief.

"Zhalia has considerable skills and is used to working on her own," Dante countered, appearing in the doorway behind Lok. "I see no reason why she shouldn't have," To tell the truth he _was_ slightly suspicious, but her story seemed legit and Lok had a point, besides, Zhalia was a friend!

Sophie huffed and returned to her book, staring angrily into the pages. Why couldn't they see that they were being deceived?

"What on earth possessed you on Tuesday?" Klaus demanded furiously.

"Not blowing my cover," she replied, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

"You could have hidden her and then hidden yourself, or slipped out undercover of the battle," he theorised.

"I figured Dante would probably tear the building apart until he found her. After which she would have soon told him of me. Willow now trusts me and will not blow my cover. Glad of my earlier decision now?" she couldn't resist adding.

"Gaining her trust may have been useful," Klaus admitted. "Which is why I will task you with returning the girl to us."

"What?" Zhalia exclaimed. "If this goes wrong there is no way she wouldn't hesitate to tell them everything! Besides, what if she is rescued again?"

"I thought you never failed?" Klaus asked smugly.

She glared at him.

"I expect the girl no later than Saturday," he told her coldly.

_**Please review! Let's see if I can make it to twenty!**_


	7. The Dilemma

_**Hi I know I just took this chapter down and reposted it but that's because I forgot to reply to E's review. I am SO SORRY E! I knew I was missing something, but I was rushing and couldn't figure out what! Anyway, here's the reply to your review:**_

_**Yeah, I do think he's killed someone. He's too creepy and does way to many experiments not to. I think that the foundation probably does have a dark side too, nothings perfect. Everything else...wait and see...thanks so much for the review, I loved reading it and please forgive me. I mean , I'm typing this on my phone for you :D**_

_**Sorry I haven't updated sooner, I meant to but I updated another story on Wednesday and didn't have time to finish the chapter, I never have time to update on Thursdays (except in holidays) and today I was banned from the computer cos apparently I spend too much time on fanfic!:( So this is a quick update before my parents get home :D**_

**The Dilemma**

Zhalia sat slumped in the front room, staring out the world and musing about the extent of her problems.

Dante looked at her worriedly, something had been affecting her over the last few days, he was sure of it, and whatever it was had only got worse since her walk earlier this afternoon. Yeah she wasn't ever the perfect ray of sunshine but she had been practically silent during dinner, well, except for a few snarky comments, which although more bitter than usual, lacked her usual venom. It really bothered him, seeing his friend like this and he wondered what was distracting her; he hoped it wasn't anything too terrible.

Zhalia glanced at Willow for a second, dropping her gaze quickly so that no-one would notice how often she was doing it. Seriously, she had no idea how she was meant to pull this off; as far as she was aware, Klaus was asking her to do the impossible – actually make that _demanding_. She sighed internally, although she was worried about blowing her cover (who wouldn't be?) she couldn't ignore the strange feeling of guilt that arose when she considered sending Willow back to Klaus. Zhalia fiddled nervously with her amulet and Dante couldn't take it anymore.

"Zhalia, what's wrong?" he demanded, kindly though.

She almost jumped in surprise, not realising that he had been watching her.

"Nothing, I'm fine," she lied, shaking her head.

Lok, Sophie, Willow and Dante looked at her suspiciously, each devising their own scenario of what her troubles were, _It has to be the Organisation,_ Willow guessed. The others were thinking along the same lines, although their thoughts were more varied and lacked the same conviction.

"You've been acting weird since you got back!" Lok stated the obvious, concern clearly evident on his face.

"She's been acting weird since we found her in the Organisation base," Sophie added more harshly, coincidentally, her thoughts on Zhalia were the second most accurate next to Willow's.

"You sure you're okay?" Dante asked.

"Like I said, I'm fine, I'm just a bit tired that's all. I'm going to bed, goodnight." Zhalia left the room and climbed the stairs into one of the guest bedrooms that she usually stayed in, her apartment in the Netherlands was over 1000km away so it made sense to stay at Dante's house.

Zhalia groaned as she looked at her blank notebook, so far she hadn't been able to devise a plan in her head so she'd stuck with brainstorming ideas instead, which had been even less successful, deciding to burn the page if she ever came up with something, she couldn't let anyone find it after all.

As the clock struck eleven she heard a knock at her door. _Great timing, _she thought sarcastically and quickly exchanged her notebook for a book on spells.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"It's me, Willow," a quiet voice came through the door. Zhalia sighed, exactly who she had not been wanting to see. "I came to see if you were okay, the others can't hear us, they're watching a movie and it's _really_ loud. If you barely hear it in this part of the house, they _definitely _can't hear us,"

"Come in," she said resignedly and put her book down, she couldn't really refuse to talk to her, hey maybe she'd find out a weakness which would help in her kidnapping plan?

Willow came in and sat down on the bed, the chair didn't look as comfortable, and she supposed standing up would have been way to imposing and formal, to get her to talk, she needed to act like she would with one of her friends from school, when they were upset. "It's about the Organisation, isn't it?" she questioned, Zhalia didn't answer. Willow had expected her to deny it, but then again, you couldn't exactly lie about the obvious. "What did they say to you?"

"Is it relevant?"

"Hmm, yeah, kinda?" Willow replied sardonically.

"Okay, I would say why do you care, but it's pretty obvious you class me as a friend," Zhalia observed. "Why do you class me as a friend?"

"Because you saved me, therefore I owe you one,"

Zhalia raised her eyebrows. "Dante, Lok and Sophie would have saved you anyway,"

"I know, I wasn't finished," she said coolly. "Whatever walls you put up, you're a nice person you know." _I've seen the way to act around the team, they trust you, you belong, and I don't think your faith in them is fake either. You're too good for the Organisation._ She thought but didn't say it out loud, Zhalia might try to deny the fact, which would knock her back a few paces. "Also, you could have really hurt me when we were fighting and you didn't. You didn't know that Dante and everyone would come _then_, you could have hurt me as much as you'd wanted without fear of consequence. You've clearly got at least some compassion!"

"I didn't want to destroy Klaus's new experiment." She explained emotionlessly. "That could have had consequences?"

Willow shook her head. "It's not that," she smiled. "Just trust me okay, even if you don't want to admit you're good, you are."

"What is the foundation doing to me?" Zhalia moaned out loud and Willow laughed.

_Now, down to business, _"So, what was the meeting about then?" she pressed and Zhalia's joking side immediately vanished.

"I don't have to tell you," she countered.

"I know you don't, I'm hardly going to say 'now, we can to this the easy way, or the hard way,' and start torturing you am I?" she quipped. "But, still, I have my methods," Willow smirked as Zhalia raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yeah, what might those be?"

"Zhalia," she moaned, cutting to the chase again. "Please, just tell me what's wrong,"

She remained silent.

"Was he mad at you for letting me go?"

"I managed to talk my way out of it," Zhalia told her, sounding bored.

"Is that Professor person mad at you?"

"I doubt he knows about it," she continued calmly.

"Is someone going to kill you?" she asked, less sensibly, more exasperratedly, she was currently going through all the detective movies she had ever seen and uh, maybe something really stupid would get Zhalia to open up…then again, maybe not…

Zhalia barely held in her laughter. "No!" she rolled her eyes.

"Dante,"

She shook her head. "Actually the Professor probably does want him dead, but that is irrelevant in this case."

Well, Willow was making progress, admittedly really slow progress, but still!

"Lok, Sophie, Cherit," Zhalia shook her head to all of these. "Me?" she faltered before shaking her head again. Willow's expression darkened. Zhalia cursed herself for her mistake, that _really_ shouldn't have taken her by surprise, and she was a _spy_, one of the Organisations top spies come to that, why the heck had that happened? Maybe the Organisation wasn't as amazing as they boasted after all then.

"They don't want to kill you!" she corrected, _probably, _she added silently. "There just slightly mad that you escaped, the worst they'll ever do is severely maim you,"

Willow stared at her, letting her know she wasn't fooling anybody.

"Okay, okay, if they get you back they'll probably experiment on you which _could _lead to your death, but…"

"They're not going to get me back right?" Willow interrupted.

"No of course not," Zhalia said, the right tone of voice, right timing, right expression; she was _not_ lying, well to anyone that wasn't trained of course.

"They want me back," Willow inferred from her previous knowledge, ignoring Zhalia's perfect act. "Damn it, what do I do now?"

Zhalia could hardly pretend that they weren't, it was slightly too obvious, I mean, why wouldn't they want her back? The Organisation were stubborn idiots!

"I've got to get out of here?"

"Yeah sure, take a flight to America and don't stop running till you get to San Francisco?" Zhalia enquired cynically. "They'll find you."

"Point," Willow agreed. "What if they hurt my friends, they're not under police protection?" the thought had been haunting her since she had escaped and now it was the clearest thing in her mind.

"I can't say they wouldn't do that, but can I comfort you with the knowledge that they _probably_ wouldn't?" _Hang on, what am I doing, the most obvious thing to do would be to admit, yes, the Organisation are going to find her friends and kill them one by one unless she comes to the Organisation with me? _Zhalia, frustrated, thought to herself. _Damn, that would have been easy._

"Zhalia, just tell me, what, do, I, do?" Willow questioned desperately, her panic clearly evident.

"Um, well, thing is…" she didn't even know why she was admitting this. "I've been tasked…"

"Willow, Zhalia, what are you doing?"

Willow screamed and dived on to the floor, earning herself a nasty bruise on her elbow and hip. Sophie stared down at her bemusedly before launching into attack mode.

"Zhalia, what is going on, you have been acting strangely since we found you at the Organisation base and first you're all jumpy and mopey and now Willow has started freaking out at every little thing and!"

"Actually, I've been jumpy since I was kidnapped, but you're the first one to surprise me so…" Willow exaggerated but Sophie ignored her lie.

"Are you brainwashing her with Organisation secrets or something?" she was clearly furious and _not_ thinking straight.

"Wow, way to overreact Sophie," Zhalia said, looking like most do halfway through double-science. "I was rescuing her, _remember_?"

"I'm sorry," Sophie moaned. "But there is something clearly wrong with you Zhalia and I _need _to find out what!"

"Sure it's not 'cos you're jealous?"

Sophie growled frustrated and stormed out of the room.

Willow shot a glance at Zhalia and ran after her.

"Sophie," she called. "You know she wasn't doing anything! Why do you constantly scrutinise her every move?"

Sophie faced her dejectedly. "Because something is _not_ right about her and," she sighed. "And, if no one else believes me then it's my responsibility, if they get hurt, it's my fault! I can't just dismiss it as their own faults because they're my friends, I _have_ to protect them, I can't let anything happen! If Dante, or Lok, or even you got hurt because of her, and my inability to see what was going on around me, I'd never forgive myself!"

"I'm sorry Sophie," Willow apologised, she hadn't really understood how Sophie felt about this before, it was so much more understandable. "Look, she wasn't doing anything weird, and she never has, but, I promise you, that if she ever does, I swear to god, I'll tell you!"

"Thanks," Sophie said and hugged her. "So, there's finally another girl here, I know Lok's my age but he can get annoying at times. You want to have a sleepover round mine?"

Willow considered, the events of the last few days had caused her to completely forget everyday things about her life, like what she and her friends always used to do, it was really tempting, but if the Organisation needed her back, surely she would be safer here? Or maybe going somewhere that wouldn't be high on their list of locations was a good idea?

"Don't worry, you'll be fine, my bodyguard Santiago will ensure nothing happens to you," Sophie assured her.

Willow nodded, smiling happily. "So, movies, midnight feasts, dare games etc….what's first on our list?"

_**So, what do you think will happen next? Please review! **_


	8. The Sleepover

**Disclaimer: Don't own Huntik, or Indiana Jones :) **

_**Okay, so I have finished one of my stories and updated the other so it is now back to this one :D, sorry to keep you all waiting!**_

_**E: Yep, sleepover time! Is that kidnapping going to happen yet, hmm…why don't you find out by reading on? (evil laugh :D) Can I explore the dark side of the foundation? I don't see why not, just when the time's right, it didn't fit with this chapter, thanks for the fantastic review again!**_

_**So, on with this story…**_

**The Sleepover**

"You live here?" Willow gaped, she'd thought Dante's house was big!

"Yeah," Sophie shrugged, unfazed, which Willow guessed she would have been too if she lived in a place like this all the time.

She unlocked the door and led her into a spacious entrance hall. "My rooms this way," Sophie told her. "So, what do you want to do first?" she asked after they had finally reached her luxurious bedroom, which had taken a while as Willow had stopped to stare at _a lot_ of things.

"It's 11.40," Willow pointed out. "We can't really do much as we can't be too noisy,"

"You may have neighbours in close proximity to worry about, but I don't! Sophie laughed carelessly. "We could turn the speakers up full volume and play heavy-metal and LeBlanche and Santiago wouldn't hear us, and they're in the same house!"

Willow raised an eyebrow, "I was told Lok was the stupid one and you were the sensible one, but it seems I've been misinformed."

"Okay, that_ is_ an exaggeration, I _know_ sound travels far at night, they probably would, but at least we don't have to whisper!" she exclaimed. "Come on, I'll go tell LeBlanche we've arrived and go get some snacks, do you want to watch a movie first?"

"Yeah," Willow agreed, she was very tired, but it was a sleepover, the place where, ironically, sleep wasn't common; besides, with her money, Sophie was bound to have an awesome DVD collection!

"Willow, you coming?" Sophie called from the landing and the two teens rushed downstairs. "Good evening," she greeted Santiago, who was sitting in the library.

"My Lady," he replied solemnly. "I wasn't expecting you home tonight, once it got past 10.30, I assumed you would be staying at Dante's house again."

"I invited Willow to come round for a sleepover," she explained. "Is LeBlanche in the kitchen?"

"Study,"

"Thank you, I will go and speak with him now. Would you so kindly show Willow to the DVD collection?" Santiago nodded and Sophie left the room. Willow was a bit sad about being left behind, but she was sure that it would have just wasted time, the kitchen was probably on the other side of the house and Willow would have spent ten minutes dawdling through the corridors, just to get there. Also, Willow mused as she looked at the towering DVD and Blu-ray shelves that Santiago had just shown her, she might be here a while…

"Have you any ideas on how to get the girl yet?" Klaus demanded through the phone.

"No," Zhalia replied shortly. "She's at Sophie's anyway, so it's not like I can get her now,"

"Excellent, excellent," Klaus murmured in his creepy voice. "Without Dante Vale's protection she should be easy enough to obtain…"

"It's not that simple," Zhalia interrupted. "Santiago is not someone to be crossed, and for a butler, LeBlanche had some pretty amazing skills too…"

"Two people, is that all?" Klaus laughed. "Well, they can be easily taken care of; and the Casterwill girl, from what you've told me, it seems her bark is far worse than her bite, this shouldn't be problematic…Zhalia, don't get involved, keep your cover, I will do this myself."

"Of course," she told him and put down the phone, at least she didn't have to worry about blowing her cover anymore, but Klaus was going to take care of it? Why did that make her feel even more nervous. She sighed and made her way downstairs to where Dante and Lok had moved on to watching Tomb Raider, both having a heated discussion of why their team _way _better than Lara Croft. She needed to take her mind off things, and this seemed like the perfect way.

Willow settled on Indiana Jones, he reminded her of Lok slightly, especially when he chose to wear a hat, and from what the team had told her, the boulder run scene seemed like everyday life! She inserted the disk into the Blu-ray machine just as Sophie arrived, her arms piled high with sweets, cakes and popcorn. "Dante would kill us if he finds out what we're eating but who's gonna tell him?" she grinned.

"Not me!" Willow agreed and dug in greedily, leaning back against the sofa as the opening titles began, screw dieting, she must have lost pounds from fear when she was kidnapped!

"So…have you ever kissed anyone?" Willow grinned maliciously, they were back in Sophie's room, it was three in the morning and was turning into a real slumber party now!

"Uh, my parents, I presume," she skirted around the question, Willow raised her eyebrows. "You mean a boy," she sighed. "Oh fine yeah, it was a dare alright!" she protested as Willow cracked up laughing.

"You?" Sophie asked, returning the favour.

"No," Willow lied, shaking her head, _what, _she demanded. _All I'm doing is taking the chance to practice my lying skills? _Although she probably shouldn't have been, she had been extremely impressed with Zhalia's ability to lie and was working on honing her abilities. Sophie accepted her untruth without question and Willow felt slightly bad, however she wouldn't let her know she was lying, you never know, it might be important one day that Sophie didn't pick up on her ticks, like the fact she wasn't telling the truth when asked about what Zhalia was doing at the Organisation base?

"Do you ever dream about kissing someone?" Willow demanded. Sophie turned bright red, grabbed the nearest pillow and started hitting her with it. "It's okay!" Willow protested, backing away towards Sophie's bed. "Zhalia's told me all about your crush on Dante!"

"Not him you idiot!" Sophie exclaimed, horrified and started hitting her harder. Willow laughed and jumped onto Sophie's bed, grabbing two pillows and leaping towards Sophie. "Hey that's not fair!"

Five minutes later and the pillow fight was still in full flow, a member of the Organisation watched the smiling girls through his binoculars and talked into his com. "Sir, when is it clear to apprehend the target?" he asked and there was static for a moment.

"Not too long now," came the icy reply. Santiago and LeBlanche had been taken care of; if they ever did, they would not wake for hours.

"Take that back!" Sophie yelled while Willow dodged the five consecutive pillows, she didn't feel tired any more, not now the adrenaline had kicked in!

"Make me!" Willow taunted, and then screamed and threw herself behind the desk as the window exploded without warning!

"Ah, such a cowardly attack, I expected no less from a bunch of suits!" Sophie taunted, standing up from behind the sofa she had dived over for cover. "Fight with us Sabriel, take flight Icarus!" she commanded.

"Help them Salicti, touchram!" Willow added and aided the fight.

To say that they fought badly would be a lie, there were simply too many to take out, after a few minutes the two teens were both forced back against the wall, about 20 spells pointed at them.

"Which one of you is Willow?" a suit demanded.

"Oh you mean you don't know?" Sophie scoffed, trying to sound less posh, "Oh dear, you _have_ got a problem."

"I wonder what Klaus will say about this?" Willow questioned confidently, trying to sound more posh, although not extremely accurate it went better than Sophie's attempt.

A suit glanced at his watch. "We don't have time for this, take them both, I'm sure they'll be more eager to talk back at the labs!" he grinned evilly and Willow and Sophie tensed as they were both knocked out and dragged towards a black SUV.

_**So, what did you think of my plot twist? I wasn't planning to do that, but I had an idea, so I took it! Zhalia's life had just got sooo much more difficult! :D (Not to mention Willow and Sophie are in heaps of trouble *mwahahahaha*-evil laugh)**_

_**Please review, let's see if it can make it to twenty-five, I've already passed my goals of 5, 10, then 20, so on to the next figure! I love reviews!**_

:D


	9. The Next Day

_**Disclaimer: Do I really have to do this again, come on, I've written this for eight chapters already! So for a change I have decided to tell you all that I own everything :D (not) :(**_

_**Hi, I am so incredibly sorry for not updating for so long, I had to update another story and then I got obsessed with Lord of the Rings fanfic which is why you had to wait for over a week, to be fair I was ill quite a bit though as well so it wasn't totally that I couldn't be bothered and lazy :) **_

_**E: Will they test stuff on Sophie too…well my amazing reviewer, you will simply just have to wait to find out ;) This is going to end badly, I couldn't agree more…although I could never not give my readers happy ending…or could I? (duh, duh, duh!) Oh yeah, and dark side of the foundation, as promised :D (okay after second thoughts and 1 and ½ hours of writing, next chapter, I don't have time to write all I would like tonight, sorry)**_

_**STELLA (another guest) said something about Dante/Zhalia a few chapters ago, well I guess this counts as the beginning of a relationship :)**_

**The Next Day**

Zhalia waited nervously for Dante to find that Willow was missing. She was worried, but couldn't decide whether it was because she wanted him to find her or because she wanted Klaus to succeed and her job to stay secret. She stared intently at the clock, Sophie really was an uncaring idiot wasn't she. 10.30am and she still hadn't come running in through the door, panting and screaming about how Willow had been taken. Maybe the kid had some hidden agenda and wanted her to be disposed of anyway, no wait, this was _Sophie _she was talking about, the Organisation could have hurt her, or even worse got rid of her, hold on, she hated the princess, she would not feel concern for some stuck up rich snob. Although Sophie might put on a show for Dante, it wasn't like she would actually care if anything ever happened to Zhalia.

Dante came into the kitchen to grab an energy bar after his morning workout. "You alright?" he asked, noticing her expression.

"Uh yeah," she told him, blinking as her eyes became adjusted to looking at something that didn't have three spinning hands and make a ticking sound.

"You seem very distracted, worse than last night," he pressed, taking a bite and savouring the taste of the sweet cereal.

"I'm fine!" she snapped. "What's it to you anyway, always pestering me about my emotions," Zhalia added as an afterthought, still defensive, but not so much so. Dante stared at the confusion in her eyes, her tiredness causing the barriers for her emotions to crumble a bit. She thought about how Willow had said she was a nice person, huh, she'd got her kidnapped, that was lovely! What the others couldn't see though, was that the world was all about power and how to get it, they hadn't had to grow up like she did, they looked after people and for what, it made them weak, besides, she didn't need or deserve their concern anyway. Zhalia had to admit it might be interesting to see life like the team did once in a while, after all, it hadn't done them any harm, _it will do though,_ a small voice muttered in her ear that she couldn't get rid of. She owed Klaus everything, she mustn't forget that, even if she didn't always agr-…that was irrelevant.

"I care about you!" he insisted, sounding a little hurt.

Zhalia was about to weaken but she couldn't let her walls down. "Why, what am I to you except for a team member? I'm hardly important!" wait, had she just said that she didn't think that she was significant, thank god Sophie didn't hear that, the brat would have had a field day. It was true though, in the Organisation your team members were colleagues, nothing more, if something happened you got new ones, hopefully they would be better, if you got stuck with worse you had a problem, but there wasn't really much you could do about it. Of course, she had often preferred to work alone…

"Zhalia, please don't say that, you know…" he trailed of as someone came barging through the front door. The two of them stormed out of the kitchen and into the room where Lok was alone, well with his titans, but if he was against loads of suits he wouldn't stand a chance.

"LeBlanche?" Lok questioned, getting up to help the old butler, who was bent over double, trying to catch his breath, sweat pouring from his forehead.

_Wait, where's Sophie? _Zhalia frowned. _Shouldn't she be here instead, surely she would have got here faster? And why was LeBlanche showing so much concern for a girl he hardly knew?_

"Sophie…" he gasped. "…she's been…kidnapped…by the…Organisation!" Dante and Lok stared at him in horror.

"What!" Zhalia exclaimed, couldn't the Suits do one simple thing right? It was easy enough, see, rich girl, good with titans, nice girl, not so good, wasn't hard to spot the difference, especially with the accents!

Lok and Dante looked at her strangely. "Since when have you cared so much about Sophie?" Lok enquired suspiciously, oh great, now he'd taken Sophie's place as chief distruster.

"_Willow_ was at her house you dim-witted idiot!" she shot back, trying to hide how she really felt.

"Willow's been taken too," LeBlanche informed her, coldly and more calmly this time.

Zhalia visibly paled, okay, she'd tried to deny it before, but Willow was her friend and as much as she might like to shy away from the truth, she didn't want her in Klaus's labs. Couldn't the suits do anything right? Come to that couldn't _she_ do anything right, caring about others got you hurt or even killed. Willow was just another experiment, she didn't matter. "We need to get them back!" she announced, it was all about not blowing her cover, right? Or wrong, maybe she shouldn't help them find Klaus, she couldn't betray him could she?

Sophie awoke to the sound of a dripping pipe and the chill of a stone room. Bleary eyed she gazed about her, Willow was sitting in the opposite corner of the room and reading a book, shivering slightly, her foot drawing squiggles in the grime absentmindedly.

"What are you doing?" Sophie asked, getting unsteadily to her feet and walking over.

Willows eyes visibly lit up. "You're okay!" she exclaimed. "I was beginning to worry if they'd hit you over the head too hard, I mean, I knew you were still breathing but still!"

Sophie smiled. "What are you reading?" she enquired. "Or more to the point how did you manage to take a book with you?"

"Oh, it's not mine," she said conversationally, as if they weren't trapped in an underground dungeon. "Klaus gave it to me, he figured I might need to learn a few more spells before I fought anyone again."

"But haven't you learnt some already?"

Willow shrugged. "Don't see any harm in learning more!"

"I see your point." Sophie nodded before dragging Willow up off the floor to come sit on the bed that she had previously been lying on. "You'll get ill sitting on that floor," she observed.

"Who are you my mother?" Willow snapped and then bit her tongue, looking down at the ground, it was a touchy subject for both of them, Sophie because her mum was dead and Willow because she might never see hers again, they also hadn't parted on the best of terms.

Sophie sighed and pushed the blanket against the wall, so they could lean against it, the cold still seeped through but less so. Willow kept her eyes fixed on the book, but muttered a soft "Thanks,"

Sophie glanced at what she was reading. "Can I see?" she asked and Willow leaned towards her so she could observe it. Sophie accidentally brushed her arm. "Oh my gosh Willow! You're boiling!" she exclaimed and Willow shrugged, looking guilty and drawing away from her slightly.

"I'm sorry, but we have to think of a way out of here and focusing on that fact that I'm unwell will not help you formulate a plan!" she apologised, she had been feeling steadily worse since she had woken and had hoped that her dizzy feeling would pass, if not now at least when they had thought of an escape plan.

"We don't have an escape plan!" Sophie cried angrily, her fear getting the better of her, this was not where she wanted to be right now, there was almost no chance of getting out and she didn't know how close Dante and the others were to finding her.

"Sorry, I'm trying to figure one out by looking at this book," Willow told her, shrinking away and feeling worse at Sophie's voice, before another dizzy spell hit and she closed her eyes, willing it to pass.

"Something wrong girls?" Klaus demanded. Slamming the door open.

Willow gazed at his blurry face while Sophie muttered a quick. "No sir," she was raised to be polite, particularly in life threatening situations. An angry sarcastic comment could hardly help here, especially not when Willow was in such a state, speaking of which…

"Willow, come here. I wish to take another sample and then test your abilities again," Klaus told her sharply.

She took a deep breath and nodded, pushing herself up off the bed and taking a few carefully placed steps forward. She collapsed and fell to the ground.

"Willow!" Sophie shrieked and Klaus looked mildly surprised at her unconscious form. "Very well," he sighed. "I shall just have to experiment on you first then, see how magic affects those of the same age who have always used it. I didn't really need you but maybe you can be of help. Besides, when she wakes, seeing the effect of magic on the sick should be a most interesting experiment, but, if she does not make it, no matter."

Sorry, I wanted to make this longer but I have homework etc. (sigh)

_**Please review, also do you want everyone to find out Zhalia's a spy or to stick with the canon(ish) version of events. Please type yes if you want or no if you don't, but I suppose that could have been obvious. Hope you enjoyed and please review!**_


	10. The Missions

_**Okay, I know I said that I would make my updates more frequent but I have been seriously busy with boring stuff like statistics coursework (kill me now!) and not so boring stuff like starting rock climbing lessons woohoo, I bet you're all so jealous ;) (sorry).Finally I got the chance to scribble (literally, my hands were numb) this chapter down last evening whilst waiting in freezing temperatures for my mum to collect me from a maths challenge (ah the joys of being good at maths, although I had an awesome team, so parts were actually quite fun). Anyway, hope you enjoy!**_

_**E: Finally here's your 'dark side of the foundation bit', I hope I did okay, I wasn't quite sure how to write it and I didn't want to make them too mean at the minute however I could probably make them worse in later chapters, it probably (no definitely) wasn't quite what you had in mind, although if you review and say more of what you were thinking I am sure that I could add it into a later chapter/the sequel if it fits (yes, I have decided to write one-although I do still have quite a few chapters to go) So you will now learn what Dante thinks about the dark side, for people like Montehue and Lok's mum, well I'm still trying to figure everything out, so I don't know about them…thanks for the review, well, all of the reviews and the great idea!**_

_**Also, in light of getting over 25 reviews (seriously that is insane, I was expecting to get 10 at most but keep them coming!) thank you to xxRedshadowxx and Nina Vale too for reviewing every single chapter, there are no words to describe how amazing you are! **_

**The Missions**

"Are you okay?" Willow asked Sophie, she was still huddled on the floor, a few metres away from where she had fallen.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she told her calmly. "It couldn't exactly be classed terrible. I'm more worried about what he has planned next. He's crazy after all and this experiment seems almost sane, he'll get bored. Besides the real person we should be worrying about is you, how do you feel?"

"Oh yeah, I'm collapsed on the ground, shivering with a raging temperature, I'm fine." she deadpanned and Sophie bit her lip. Willow needed to be in a good condition if they were to have any chance of escape. Her mystery illness had to pass, they didn't have the medical equipment or medicines to deal with this, she forced herself not to think about what would happen if Willow got worse, Klaus didn't care about her enough to want to keep her alive.

"So, first we need to call Guggenheim," Dante ordered, rationalising the situation, and they gathered round the giant TV. LeBlanche was flopped on the sofa, drinking his fifth glass of water and at Lok's request, eating one of Dante's energy bars to regain his strength, once he stopped feeling sick.

"Guggenheim," Dante greeted as his image flickered onto the screen.

"Dante, I have a mission for you…what's wrong?" he questioned, seeing the expression on the top-seeker's face.

"Willow has been kidnapped again, but they've taken Sophie this time too, we have to find them but we'll need more resources!"

Guggenheim frowned. "They won't be that easy to track down Dante, it will take us a while as the Organisation will have put in place more precautions than last time." he sighed. "Also we have more important matters to deal with than two teenagers, as it is we urgently need you to go to a temple in Peru,"

"Ironic," Zhalia muttered darkly.

"Sophie was a good Seeker and having a Casterwill was a great asset to the Foundation, I'm sorry,"

Dante was speechless, he'd never seen Guggenheim behave so cruelly and uncompassionately before, he was taking about Sophie as if she were already dead. Normally working with the Foundation, although it was always about the bigger picture, individual lives mattered, what was going on, something had clearly happened, and whatever it was it wasn't good.

"What," Lok protested angrily, _he_ wasn't going to keep silent. "We can't just leave them, who knows what crazy experiments Klaus will do when he gets tired of the last one. They're our friends, we can't just ditch them!"

"Well according to the Foundation we can!" Dante stated mockingly, folding his arms. "Don't tell me this is _your_ decision?"

"Look, the foundation can't always focus on a couple of people, we need you to go to Peru!"

"You're talking like the Organisation!" Dante exclaimed.

"I thought the Foundation cared about people and never abandoned them, looks like I was wrong!" Zhalia said coldly, hurt evident in her voice, the team made out that the Foundation was perfect, but when it came down to it, they were no better than the Organisation, she didn't even know why she had begun to think any different, Klaus had warned her against this, 'even the Foundation are in it for power' he'd told her, he was right, he was always right, well…mostly. _Shut up Zhalia! _she yelled in her head, what was wrong with her recently?

"Dante please!" begged Guggenheim. "We need you to put your feelings for your team aside and go to Peru,"

"I didn't sign up or this!" he growled.

"Dante listen to him," Zhalia instructed calmly.

"But Zha-" Lok exclaimed, she cut him off.

"Sir, we'll be in Peru by tonight," she promised, looking straight at him, her face filled with sincerity. "Trust us, we won't fail you, we'll put our personal problems aside." And with that she turned the TV off.

"What was that about?!" Lok exclaimed, Dante was looking at her with a wounded expression.

"We were just wasting time arguing," she explained. "You shouldn't talk back like that anyway, it could get you in deep trouble and then what would we do? Go to Peru and complete the mission as quickly as possible. I think I may have a lead which would probably be a good idea to follow up,"

Dante nodded. "LeBlanche, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave, go and visit Santiago in hospital and tell us if he wakes from his coma. Lok, grab your bag, let's go." he paused for a second. "What lead?" he asked, she remained silent, unsure of what to say apart from 'uh…something?' which wouldn't have done any good. "Oh, it doesn't matter, but if it works out and you think you can get them out without being captured, go for it."

"You think I wasn't going to?" she asked with a smirk.

"Not for one second," he replied as Lok returned to the room, holding Dante's rucksack out for him.

Dante snatched it and sprinted out of the door and past LeBlanche, not stopping to check if Lok was running hastily, but nowhere near as quickly, behind him.

Zhalia bit her lip as she gathered her stuff together. She felt sorry for Dante and Lok, it clearly wasn't usual for the foundation to treat them so harshly. She rolled her eyes; jeez if they were worried about that they should try the Organisation out for size! They wouldn't have even bothered looking for Willow the first time she went missing, well they might do if she'd had some secrets worth hiding, but otherwise she'd have been irrelevant. Zhalia knew that Klaus would always look her though, after all she was an exception, she was his best spy and very important to him.

Now, to the question of whether or not she was actually going to betray the Organisation, it would be okay as long as Klaus didn't find out about it right? Her heart told her she was still letting him down though. Urgh, what was she going to do?

Slowly Zhalia shut the door and locked it, stepping out into the warm Venetian sunshine. It was late afternoon with a cool breeze and her hair flew in front of her face, making her look even more mysterious than usual. As she walked down the street she glared at a passing kid who was looking at her with interest, they drew away from her in fear. Funny, she mused, it hadn't made her feel powerful like usual, instead it had only made her feel more alone and…guilty? No! What was happening to her? Okay, that was it, she was _not_ rescuing Willow, not if it was going to make her pathetic! Weak, that was something she couldn't afford to be. However Zhalia couldn't ignore the small part of her that knew that maybe it wasn't weakness, not like she'd thought it was anyway. Could she afford to have these feelings though, was being like Dante so bad after all? But they were all the same in the end weren't they, the episode with Guggenheim proved that.

She sat down on a park bench and folded her arms, she didn't know what to do. It was a long time since anything had made her feel vulnerable but now the only thing she wanted to do was curl up into a ball with her head on her knees and think. But she needed to act grown up, she was not a child anymore, she knew that there was a way to sort this out. Just then her mobile rang.

"Again?" she hissed out loud. "What is it?" she snapped.

"Zhalia?" a suit asked tentatively.

"Yeah, it's me, can't you do anything right, you had to take the Casterwill girl too didn't you?"

"With all due respect that wasn't my fault, I was not a part of that team," he said coldly. "Klaus wants you to come in,"

She sighed. "Alright," she agreed, hanging up and putting her phone back in her pocket, swinging her rucksack back onto her shoulders. The sky was slowly darkening, as was her mood, but that wasn't important, all that mattered now was not blowing her cover.

_**Next chapter should be up soon as I have already mentally written half of it, I just thought that this would be a good place to end the chapter.**_

_**So, now that's over, hope you all enjoyed, I am really struggling to think of a way to experiment on them, I feel so guilty whenever I think about doing something awful to Willow which is strange as I beat the heck out of another main character but that is quite literally a different story!**_

_**Happy Valentine's day to anyone who is celebrating, if you have a date, I hope it goes well, if you don't, join the club! Oh well, just settle for daydreaming about your favourite crush from a TV show or something :D Please leave a review and pull me out of my (fake) misery, oh Chris *sigh* (some guy from something called Charmed) why can't you be real? :D**_


	11. The Fractures in Loyalty

_**Right, I know I got my timings slightly out last time, it was morning and then it was suddenly afternoon, my imagination sometimes forgets how reality works, but let's just stick with that timeline now, something weird and magical happened and about 6 hours failed to exist. :D**_

_**Just in case anyone is confused, I published another chapter a few hours ago.**_

**The Fractures in Loyalty**

Zhalia made her way cautiously through the corridors, just in case Sophie or Willow were being escorted somewhere. She stalked into the security room where she'd been told she could find Klaus's second in command.

"What was so urgent?" she demanded, it had taken her about seven hours to get to Klaus's bookshop and it was now 2:30 in the morning, and god she was tired! She glanced about the room, there were papers scattered about a desk, a shelf full of amulets and about 30 screens showing pictures from various CCTV cameras, her eyes flicked across them.

"You'll have to ask Klaus," he shrugged.

"Well he's not here is he?" she snapped, she had just come all this way for almost nothing!

Zhalia almost gasped in shock, she was pretty sure she jumped a bit. She stared at Willow in concern, through the blurry image she could just about make out her hunched figure, Sophie seemed to be shaking her slightly, apparently panicked. "What's happened to her?" Zhalia questioned, her throat dry.

"What, the blonde one with the checked shirt and ripped jeans?" he asked, looking at her strangely. She nodded, her eyes filled with the fear she sought to control but couldn't.

Zhalia took a deep breath and nodded. "What did Klaus do to her?"

"Why would you care?" he enquired suspiciously and she glared at him ferociously.

"I don't! But answer the stupid question!" she ordered.

"He didn't do anything to her, she just came down with this mysterious illness all of a sudden, it has slowly worsened and if she continues at the rate she's going at she won't last very long,"

Despite her best efforts Zhalia looked shell-shocked, no, no, no, this couldn't be happening. Of course she was always going to end up dead or at least severely and irreversibly injured taking part in Klaus's experiments, but this made it seem so much more real. "Hasn't anyone given her any medication or anything?" she challenged.

"Well, no," he replied uncomfortably, Zhalia in a rage was never a good thing. "She isn't important, she's just a girl, it's not like she'll matter,"

Zhalia stormed out the room in anger, she knew this was how the world and the Organisation worked, she was weak, she was irrelevant, everyone for themselves, everyone for power, that didn't make it right, that would never made it right! The old Zhalia would say 'screw morality' but she wasn't the old Zhalia, not anymore anyway. She was going to rescue Willow, Willow was not going to die, she couldn't! But what about Klaus, screw him too, yeah he was her father, but Willow was her friend, maybe one of the best and only ones she had ever had, apart from Lok and Dante that was, and what they thought mattered to her too! She imagined their faces if they knew that she had let her snuff it.

He watched her leave, Klaus was right, there was something wrong with Zhalia, he smiled, he had never liked her in the first place, now to see if he could get rid of her. Damn, that was impossible, messed up or not she was his daughter and apparently that mattered to him?

Zhalia reviewed her options, she needed to turn the security cameras off and find a way to escape without anyone finding out, getting Dante and Lok to help was out of the question, they were in South America! Therefore it was up to her.

Meanwhile, in a temple in Peru, Dante and Lok had run into trouble, they needed the team, it was so much easier with four instead of two! They both missed Zhalia's sarcastic comments and Sophie's confident voice, calling for spells and titans. They needed them, they had only known each other for a short time and they were already inseparable.

"I will blast you into oblivion!" a suit threatened.

"Hey, that's a fancy magic thing you got there, I doubt it actually works!" Lok taunted.

"Lok," Dante warned, that had not been a smart thing to say.

The suit trained his weapon on them. "Give us the titan now!" he ordered.

"Sorry," Dante shrugged. "I already bonded with it."

"Well then, I'll just have to get it another way," he smirked and fired it at them. A beam of bright blue light hit them before they had time to jump out the way, and that meant it was really fast as Dante's reflexes were incredibly impressive. The titan fell to the floor.

Dante could feel himself falling apart, literally, he was immersed in pain and he could hear his thoughts as they got less coherent and more confused. _Zhalia, _he thought. _I've got to get to Zhalia!_

The same sensation was happening to Lok_. Damn it,_ he mused, _I'm dying and I never even got to say goodbye to Sophie!_

Zhalia stalked back to the security office, time to put her newly formed plan into action, this was not going to go brilliantly at all. Suddenly she crashed into Dante, she let out a screech and fell backwards onto the floor. _Where the hell did he come from, _she thought angrily, glaring at him, temporarily forgetting how much she had wished he was here just a few seconds earlier. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, noting that he looked just as shocked as she was.

Dante reached down and held out a hand. After a moment's thought she took it and Dante smiled, still looking dazed. The old Zhalia would have complained that she could get up herself, but what really was the point arguing?

"I don't really know," he admitted. "A suit hit me and Lok with some sort of light beam and I disintegrated, but thinking of you seemed to pull me here,"

"You thought of me?" she raised her eyebrows incredulously.

"Lok, where is he, he got hit too?" Dante flew into a barely controlled panic.

"Don't worry," she consoled him. "I'm sure he just thought of Ireland or Venice or something, he'll be okay, you'll see." _Hopefully not the professor or anything. _"Right now we have bigger problems though. Sophie and Willow are being held on the basement level and Willow is critically ill, she needs medical attention immediately!"

He nodded. "Which way?" he asked and she pointed down the corridor, who needed to turn off all the cameras and sneak around? Her excuse was Dante, she couldn't blow her cover in front of him could she? "Right," he acknowledged and raced down it, closely followed by Zhalia who yelled directions at him.

"Argh!" Lok screamed as he hit the stone floor, he groaned. "Everfight!"

Sophie raised her eyebrows. "Great rescue mission Lok!"

"Sophie, wait, what?" he asked, looking around him in bewilderment. "This better not be heaven,"

"No of course it's not, idiot!" she retorted. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"Um, there was this blue light and uh ta-da!" he exclaimed, not explaining it anywhere near as well as Dante had done.

"Uh, huh," she murmured, glancing down at Willow, whose breathing was slowly getting shallower. "Lok, help me I don't think she's gonna make it!"

Lok looked down at her in horror for a second, but then his expression cleared and he frowned. "Sophie, I think I know a way we can save her," he described. "There's this spell, it's like a superpower version of everfight, but you'll be able to do it won't you?"

Sophie stared at him sceptically. "Lok, no offence, but…"

"No," he interrupted. "I know there is, I read it in a book about seeker magic, one of the one's Dante suggested."

"Okay," she said inquisitively, but still sounding unsure.

"All you have to say is 'everbetter' and it works, _trust me_!"

"Lok, that sounds like the kind of spell a child would come up with," she reasoned.

"Just try it Sophie, _please_!" he begged. She nodded but still didn't have much faith in its origins.

Sophie hovered one hand over Willow's head and one over her heart. "I really hope this works," she muttered. "Everbetter!"

A wispy blue glow came out of her palm and she gasped.

"Come on, you can do this Sophie!" Lok encouraged her.

She took a deep breath and tried again, the spell worked better now she believed but it still wasn't powerful enough.

"Help me!" she ordered Lok, who obliged, putting his hands next to Sophie's and muttering the spell at the same time. Willow stirred. "_One more time!" _she cried and they repeated the magic.

The door flew open and the two teens leapt back.

"Lok!"

"Dante, Zhalia?" he asked wondrously.

"What's going on?" Willow whispered, trying to push herself up off the floor.

"You're getting better!" Zhalia exclaimed joyfully.

Willow nodded.

"We used everbetter," Sophie explained.

"Well done, which book was it in?" Dante asked, making a note to have a look at it, it clearly had some good magic in it.

"It was the one you gave Lok actually," she clarified. "He's the one that remembered it,"

Dante turned to Lok, trying to mask his surprise. "Well done Lok, that was very well recalled,"

Lok laughed, looking slightly embarrassed. "Well, I think we should do it again," he explained. "All together this time,"

The four of them nodded and placed their hands around her. When the spell was over, Willow jumped up, filled with energy. "So, what's the plan?" she asked, grinning brightly.

There was silence for a minute and then the sound of footsteps.

"Fight the suits," Zhalia declared and they all flew into action…

_**Wow, second chapter in one afternoon! Yeah, so if this chapter hasn't made sense, like I said in the beginning, it's probably because you haven't read the last one. I should update quickly, hopefully tomorrow, as I now have quite a clear idea of where I am taking this story, only a few more chapters to go now! But still, more action and revelations than in this chapter, as there wasn't really many here, actually Zhalia deciding to side with the Foundation this time was one but anyway, there'll be more!**_

_**Also, I apologise for any grammar mistakes I may have made, I have checked it through but there has been something seriously up with my tenses and calling people he instead of she or visa-versa at the minute, I really don't know what's happening to me, I mean this is English, not French or something!**_


	12. The Mystery Girl

_Another update so soon? Hey, it's the holidays, you never know I might update again today, seeing as I have half of the next chapter written already! _

_E: Yeah, Willow can, she used her titan earlier after all. Santiago got in a coma when the Organisation did something to them in chapter eight, when it says 'Santiago and LeBlanche had been taken care of; if they ever did, they would not wake for hours' I'm sorry I meant to put that he was in a coma following that in the next chapter but I forgot so when I added it was a bit confusing I guess. Guggenheim isn't involved with the bad side, he was just the messenger for one of the few corrupt people._

**Important:**** Just in case anyone is confused I added ****two chapters**** yesterday, so if you have read one you might not have read the other!**

**The Mystery Girl**

Suits piled in from both directions.

"Okay, we split up and meet up at the nearest MacDonald's," Dante hissed and they broke off into two groups without thinking.

"Help us Salicti!" Willow called; Zhalia had helpfully thrown her amulet to her. Yeah that would raise questions on why she had it in the first place, oh well, she'd just blame one of the lower down suits and wipe all security footage.

"Kilthane, your lady calls! Make them tremble, King Basalisk!" Zhalia summoned.

"Fight with us, Sabriel!" commanded Sophie and then smirked at the stunned suits. "Take flight, Icarus!"

"Let's kick some ass!" Willow yelled and they plunged into battle, leaving a trail of unconscious suits behind them.

Lok flew through the air blasting suits with his powers and urging Kipperin faster. Dante sprinted behind him, using his awesome fighting skills as per usual; they left their other titans behind to deal with the titans and still conscious suits. They both raced up the staircase and along yet another plain white corridor.

"Dante, how do you know we're going the right way?" Lok asked, looking behind him at Dante.

"I don't. Lok look out!" he cried as Lok nearly slammed into a wall.

"Eyes on the corridor, right," he muttered as he whizzed round a corner. He landed carefully and waited for Dante to reappear. "It's a dead end," he explained.

Dante paused, listening to the sounds of the suits getting closer.

"Pick a room now, any room, I'd rather get out of this with minimal fighting," he ordered, both he and Lok were both feeling very drained from being split apart into atoms and teleported and he didn't know how much longer they could last.

Lok nodded. "Help us out, Springer!" he watched as the raccoon like titan went to the nearest door and deciphered the security code.

Dante closed the door behind him and looked around, wherever they were it seemed to be some sort of bedroom. Lok bounded onto the neatly made bed. "Boy I am beat!" he announced, trying to lie down and relax but Dante grabbed him and pulled him behind it, putting a finger to his lips.

The sound of footsteps got closer and turned the corner. "No sir, there's no one here, they must have gone the other way," a suit said into his com and the footsteps receded. They both sighed in relief at the anti-climax.

When they were sure there was no one else in earshot they stood at up examined the room. It was quite spacious and neat, although it didn't look like anyone had stayed in it for a while, some surfaces were covered in dust.

"I guess some suits do have taste," Lok commented, examining a fish tank. He didn't know what he had been expecting, probably something filled with creepy things or somewhere that looked like a military barrack possibly?

"_If _it belongs to a suit," Dante countered, deciding that some things were slightly too luxurious to belong to anyone ordinary.

"Here, fishy, fishy, fishy, fishy," Lok chided, childlike, tapping on the glass.

Dante gasped as he caught side of a picture on a bookshelf. He walked over and frowned, picking it up. "This girl looks familiar," he stated, trying to work out where he has seen her before.

"Show me," Lok walked over to stand behind him and nodded. "Yeah…she does…"

Suddenly there was a flash of blue light and Cherit appeared. "Cherit!" Lok cried happily. "I take it the Organisation found you," he nodded, looking around.

"Fancy," he decided, flying up towards the ceiling.

"I think this might be a child's room," Lok inferred, inspecting a badly drawn picture of a lizard like titan.

"That looks a bit like Gareon," Cherit put his head to one side.

"I don't think it does," Lok disagreed. "It looks more like a dinosaur, a stegosaurus, that's it!" he smiled triumphantly on having worked out the clue. "Loads of kids like dinosaurs!"

"This isn't a child's room," Dante told them both. "These books are far to advanced,"

"So someone's been staying here a while then?" Cherit asked and Dante nodded.

"Hopefully it wasn't so Klaus could experiment on them, but somehow I doubt it wasn't" he sighed and Lok looked sick.

"Move!" Zhalia yelled as they raced away. At the beginning, they had easily been able to overpower the suits, but now there was a lot more of them and they were _a lot _more experienced. They were getting further and further away from any exits and Zhalia didn't know of any good hiding places nearby.

"How come you know your way around this place?" Sophie questioned.

"Just run," Willow told her, her eyes wide.

Zhalia halted at a crossroad. "This way," she called, making a split second decision.

The others followed her without hesitation. After about half a minute they came to a dead end.

"Thanks Zhalia, I thought you said you knew what you were doing?" Sophie accused sarcastically.

"You that door, you that door, figure out the password." she ordered and they both obliged, although Sophie rolled her eyes.

After a few failed attempts at 'guessing' her password, Zhalia typed the right one in and the door swung open. "Come on!" she gestured inside. "Lok, Dante, what the hell are…" 'you doing in my room' remained unspoken.

"Zhalia move!" Willow hissed and pushed the shocked and confused seeker inside.

"I think this room belonged to a child once," Lok told her worriedly but excitedly. "Look Zhalia, a dinosaur!"

Zhalia raised her eyebrows and resisted the urge to laugh.

"Hey, just because it's not very good doesn't mean you should make fun of it!" Lok protested. "They were obviously very little when they drew this!"

Gareon turned visible and jumped off Zhalia's shoulder, rubbing against the picture and purring. This time Zhalia did roll her eyes and chuckle a bit. Gareon had always absolutely refused to let her throw out that picture, it was like he felt a special connection to it.

"See, Gareon appreciates it, he thinks the stegosaurus is part of his family!" Lok explained.

"I wasn't insulting…" Zhalia shook her head but trailed off, there wasn't any point, Willow was in fits of giggles behind her, having just figured everything out. Sophie was laughing a bit too, even though she didn't know what was going on. Dante was smiling at Zhalia and Lok good naturedly and she returned an exasperated one as Lok continued to obsess over Gareons association the picture.

Quiet voices cold be heard at the end of the corridor and Zhalia sprung into action, grabbing a vent cover and pulling it open. "Straight on, straight on, straight on, right, left, right. I studied the plans before making my entrance," she shrugged to Dante who dived in.

"Gareon, leave the picture," she commanded but he didn't listen to her. "Alright, alright, I'm taking it with us!" she muttered, folding it up and putting it in her pocket, she really thought they had passed that stage, but, apparently not. "Gareon return!" she whispered and followed Lok into the air vent, closing it soundlessly behind her.

_**Yeah, I know, 'meet at MacDonald's' I just know that there are quite a few in other countries and 'restaurant' or 'coffee shop' seemed too vague.**_

_**Please review, I promise to update soon!**_


	13. The Unravelling Secrets

_**Disclaimer, I'm sorry I forgot to do this in the last chapter, but I don't own anything. **_

_**So, here's the next chapter, hope you enjoy!**_

_**E: Too true, thanks for pointing out that mistake as it changed the whole meaning of that sentence, it was meant to be good, not god, and I have now altered it. Yeah he will get something there too.**_

**The Unravelling Secrets**

They sprinted through the busy streets filled with shoppers, hoping to get lose the Organisation in the crowds_, I'd like to see them use their titans with this many people here, _Dante smirked.

"Hey, Dante!" Lok called. "I thought you said that we could have MacDonald's!"

Dante stopped and turned around. "No, I said we would meet there, besides, we've got to keep moving and reach the airport before the Suits do,"

"Please!" Lok begged.

"Lok, I am really hungry as well but we have got to keep moving!" Sophie told him kindly.

"I, think, I, will, faint…I-can-see-suits!" he exclaimed and they all looked around in alarm.

"Where's Willow?" Zhalia questioned sharply.

"Right here!" she said, bursting out through the door and putting a bag of chicken nuggets and fries in Lok's rucksack. "Sorry, they're for later!"

"Hey!" Cherit protested as the bag landed on his head.

Dante ran over to the road and signalled to a passing taxi, they all jumped inside.

"Where do you want to go?" the driver asked, looking bored.

"The airport!" Dante said frantically, the driver still looked bored, slowly pulling out into the busy traffic.

"Sir we've lost them, we can't find them anywhere," A suit said into him com.

"Just keep looking until you do!" Klaus ordered angrily.

"Okay," Zhalia said annoyed but sarcastic. "Willow you cannot become a permanent member of our team, there isn't enough space!" she was pressed against the door in the back seat of the taxi. Willow was sitting next to her, desperately trying not to elbow her in the stomach while helping Lok get his chips out of the bag, she passed a few to Zhalia who gratefully accepted them. Dante refused. "You're insane!" Zhalia told him. "You don't know when we're next going to eat!"

"The kids need it more than me or you," he explained. "Besides, I can always pick a sandwich up at the airport,"

_Knowing our luck the Suits will find us before then,_ Zhalia rolled her eyes, ignoring him and munching on a chicken nugget.

Fortunately though they didn't, however, when they reached the airport they discovered they had missed their plane, due to the taxi drivers snail-like driving.

Dante bought the tickets for the next flight and they all wandered round the shops for a bit.

Cherit was peeping out of Lok's bag, pretending to be a soft-toy, gazing at all the sights and Gareon was sitting invisibly on Zhalia's shoulder, watching intently to see if there were any suits nearby.

"Oh look, a pizza restaurant, can we have some Dante?" Lok asked.

"Didn't you just eat?" Sophie scoffed.

"I shared medium fries and chicken nuggets with the three of you, I'm still hungry!"

"Same," Willow agreed. "Besides, I thought you needed to get something Dante?"

He nodded, choosing not to take the 'don't worry, I'm really strong, I can go for a long time without eating or drinking anything' approach. "Yeah, but I was thinking more sandwich than pizza,"

"The Organisation would never think of looking for us in a restaurant, it's not like we have to get much," Zhalia countered, she was grateful at Lok for appreciating and defending her drawing, even if he didn't understand quite who it was meant to be. Besides, she was hungry, not that she'd ever admit it, and since seeing the sign, craved pizza.

"Okay," Dante nodded, and they went in and sat down in a secluded alcove.

"Now this is more like it!" Willow exclaimed, relaxing against the soft corner seat.

"I will need some of your help to pay," Dante told them. "Foundation expenses don't cover expensive restaurants and I didn't bring that much cash,"

Zhalia nodded but Willow, Sophie and Lok shook their heads.

"Didn't have anything on me when we were kidnapped," Sophie apologised.

"Same," Willow agreed.

"Didn't have time…wait," Lok paused. "How did you buy the chips then?" he demanded.

"Uh…well…" she explained. "This kid hadn't touched his food and then he had a temper tantrum and his mum decided to put him in his pushchair and leave, I saw it through the window. It would have only gone in the bin," she argued.

"Yeah, but it's still wrong," Sophie told her.

"How?" Zhalia asked.

"Plain, Mushroom and Pepperoni pizzas please," Dante requested to the waitress who was standing awkwardly at the side.

"It's not like anyone was going to eat it anyway," she continued.

"Yeah, but it still wasn't hers," Sophie disagreed. "Besides, who made you the moral judge?"

"Who made you?" Zhalia countered.

"Does it matter?" Lok asked.

"Apparently," Willow observed, watching the two girls from very different backgrounds argue over when it is right to steal. "Plus, I _was_ going to add that I asked the woman first!"

Gareon jumped, hissing, off of Zhalia's shoulder and onto Sophie, who shrieked. "Get this thing off of me!" she yelled, ignoring all the people who stared at her strangely, figuring out what had just attacked her.

Eventually the pizzas arrived to a very icy atmosphere.

As they dug in Gareon started pawing at Zhalia pocket again, she groaned and got the picture out.

"You took that with you," Sophie said incredulously. "See yet another example, that belonged to someone else, not you, you can't just take stuff that isn't yours!"

Zhalia rolled her eyes. "Says the girl who has everything," she muttered, unfolding it carefully.

"Look Sophie," Lok tried to get her to see the other side of the story. "Whoever lived there hasn't been back for a long time,"

"Doesn't mean they're not going to, it could have been important to them!"

Gareon trod on the paper causing another rip in it. "Again!" Zhalia hissed. "You love that picture and yet all you ever seem to do is ruin it!" she gestured to the crumpled piece of paper with many strips of sellotape stuck on the back. She was getting some weird looks from people in the restaurant as she struggled with a seemingly invisible creature, and from Sophie, Lok and Dante as they tried to work out what she meant. Gareon slipped out of her grasp and flicked his pointy tongue at her, beginning to chomp away at a slice of mushroom pizza.

"Where's the...?" Lok exclaimed before the realisation hit him. "I thought titans didn't need to eat!"

"They don't," Zhalia rolled her eyes. "He's just doing it to be annoying. Gareon, stop it!" she scolded quietly, casting nervous glances around to see if anyone had spotted the disappearing pizza.

"You two have a good relationship," Dante commented. "I don't think I've seen many titans with such a close bond to a seeker before,"

"Oh please, he's not even loyal, he doesn't even listen to what she says," Sophie rolled her eyes.

"Yeah he does," Zhalia said angrily. "I don't care anyway, he's more of a best friend than a titan and does Lok listen to everything _you_ say?"

"No one can be best friends with a titan!" she argued scathingly and Willow kicked her slightly. "What was that for?"

"You don't have to be so horrible about it, what is Sabriel to you then?" she asked, somewhat apologetically. Sophie paid no attention to her

"Yes they can, because unlike other people he always cares about me and he _always_ protects me!" Zhalia retorted irritably and then cut off, realising that perhaps she had said too much.

"Uh, we should probably finish eating now as we'll have to leave the restaurant in five minutes or run the risk of missing the plane again." Dante informed them awkwardly through the silence, watching Zhalia with concern as she nibbled on the food without making eye contact.

As Willow was getting ready for bed that night she heard a knock at her door. "Come in," she told them unenthusiastically, she was drained and all she wanted to do was sleep.

Zhalia opened it and stood awkwardly in the doorway. "I came to see if you were alright. Klaus does some strange experiments, and I guess you must have picked up an illness from one of them," she stepped further into the room, away from the door, feeling uneasy, like there was something bad out there, although she saw nothing.

She nodded. "I'm okay now though, thanks to Lok's spell." She face-palmed. "He thought Gareon was a dinosaur!"

"I know," Zhalia nodded, smiling slightly. "That was a close one though, there were a lot of times the others could have found out everything…I'm sorry," she apologised.

"Why?" Willow asked. "You didn't do anything, you helped rescue us,"

"Because this is all my fault!" Zhalia exclaimed guiltily. "If I hadn't failed my mission then you would have never-!"

"What mission?" Sophie demanded, a boltflare already in her palm and Zhalia swung round, her eyes filled with shock, fear and guilt. She reluctantly got ready to fight, Sophie just had to turn up at that moment didn't she, was she constantly following her around or something? Damn, why couldn't it have been Lok, he would have believed everything she told him and maybe naively kept her secret. It had to be the girl who'd hated her from the very start didn't it? She hadn't wanted this; this wasn't how it was supposed to end. Zhalia narrowed her eyes, if anyone thought that she was going to show the Casterwill brat how scared she was though, they were sorely mistaken!

Willow stepped in front of her and Sophie looked at her curiously.

"Don't hurt her!" she pleaded and Zhalia frowned, she was more than capable of defending herself, but it was good to know that someone else wanted to for a change.

"Willow," Sophie murmured quietly but dangerously. Her voice held a threatening quality. "She's part of the Organisation, get away from her!"

Zhalia almost smiled, Sophie would make a good spy, okay she might need to work on her subtlety a little bit but all the basic skills were already there.

"No!" Willow argued. "I like you Sophie, you're a good friend and everything and I really appreciate your concern, but I trust Zhalia, she has always protected me, she feels like a big sister to me, I know she would never let anyone hurt me."

Zhalia felt a rush of gratitude, no one had ever classed her as like family, well except Klaus, but that was different. The closest she'd ever got was Dante and Lok categorising her as a close friend she supposed. At that moment she knew that she'd made the right decision, Klaus was not harming Willow! Sophie bit her lip. "But if she's from the Organisation..."

"Not everything's black and white in this world," Zhalia told her. "But yeah...I am..."

Sophie crowed in achievement. "I knew it," she said self-assuredly.

"I'm sorry," Zhalia apologised, letting her guard down a bit.

"Do you work for Klaus then? Wait, you were the reason we were kidnapped!" she accused.

"I was not!" she protested. "However, I do work for Klaus, I've been working for him since I was about six?"

"Why?" Sophie asked, concern evident in her voice as well as curiosity.

She took a deep breath. Seriously, two people in matter of days, her life really was unravelling. "He's my father,"

Sophie visibly shuddered. "No way!" she said disbelievingly, even though she was sure it was the truth. "Why, what, _how_! But Klaus is too horrible to be a father!"

"Hey watch it!" Zhalia exclaimed. "That's still my father you're talking about! And he can be very nice and caring thanks!"

"She was adopted," Willow clarified at the same moment.

"I'm sorry," Sophie said primly, looking at her fairly regretfully.

Zhalia nodded. "So you gonna quit thinking about attacking me so I can explain my story in more detail?"

Dante sighed unhappily, a great weight in his chest doubling by the moment. Okay there were times that he had thought Sophie might have been correct but he had never really believed her. The picture of the little girl suddenly made so much more sense now! It was painful to admit how much this revelation hurt him. Lok sat thunderstruck next to him with his mouth open. _Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to start testing out that sound amplifying equipment for the Foundation, _he mused. Cherit had been right, the drawing was of Gareon.

_**Okay, so the ending of this chapter was definitely AU (I'm still not sure whether that was the right decision) and I'm sorry it didn't contain much action, I promise the next one will have more! So, everyone knows her secret, how will it affect the rest of the story, how will it affect her relationship with Klaus and her alliance to the Organisation? Sorry if Gareon was a bit OOC, I just like the thought of him caring for her and protecting her, she certainly looked over the moon when she first saw him. He also looked quite a bit less scary then. Also I have no idea how old she was when she met Klaus, she looks about 5/6 when she first meets Klaus however she looks quite a bit older in the flashbacks in 'the beautiful trap' and that was supposedly before she'd met him.**_

_**Please review!**_


	14. The Truth

_**Disclaimer: I don't own everything**_

_**I'm really sorry, I know I said I'd update two days ago but I was really busy and I also apologise for this chapters length, it couldn't be longer unless you want to wait for about 4 more days :)**_

_**E: It probably was, oh well :) Uh Cherit, dunno, visiting gargoyle friends, I might have temporarily forgot about him, I guess the people in the restaurant were boring and couldn't be bothered :D**_

**The Truth**

Zhalia slowly made her way downstairs. Her problems were not yet over but she had convinced Sophie to at least consider trusting her. Sophie had amazingly agreed to sleep on it, however that probably had something to do with a lot of begging on Willow's part. She couldn't count her blessings though, not yet, Sophie was clearly going to tell the others in the morning, if not before, it was no use hoping for a miracle. Zhalia may as well pack her bags now and go explain to Klaus why her mission had failed, it would be safer to leave now, but, she didn't want to go. She hated to admit it but she liked it here, working as part of the team felt right somehow. Well, there was still plenty of time to make her decision, at the moment she was incredibly thirsty so she silently made her way down to the kitchen to fix herself a glass of juice.

As she walked into the kitchen she noticed Dante and Lok, both looked deep in thought and incredibly upset. Zhalia sighed internally, she hadn't wanted to see anyone else tonight, on another subject though, what was bothering them so much.

Dante looked up as she made her way over to the drinks cabinet as quietly as possible. "Anything you'd like to tell us?" he asked seriously.

She turned back round to face him, holding a carton and a glass in each hand and with a frown on her face. "Uh, no," she shook her head, his expression was making her uncomfortable and she tucked one of the stray strands of hair behind her ear.

"Are you sure?" he continued in earnest.

"Um yeah?" she said slowly, this was Dante in one of his 'I care about you' moods right, although she had to admit it seemed a little off.

"Anything about the Organisation?" Lok accused, his jaw set. Zhalia almost dropped the glass in surprise, but managed to hold herself together, had Sophie managed to tell them already? This had to be a coincidence.

"No, why would there be?" she asked calmly, shrugging her shoulders.

"Or about Klaus being your dad?" the once childlike and naïve teen exclaimed angrily.

She gasped and backed away towards the door, there was no use trying to hide it, Sophie would tell them anyway soon, but how had they known?

"Zhalia?" Dante questioned, hurt and betrayal evident in his eyes.

She chucked what she was holding on the side and sprinted towards her room, hoping to grab the logos book and various other possessions before she left.

"Zhalia?" he shouted and followed her as she practically flew up the stairs.

She barged into her room and grabbed the book from beneath her mattress, jumping over to the window and yanking it open.

"I'm sorry, wait!" Dante said plaintively, gazing at her with deep, sad eyes and she couldn't help but stop for a few seconds.

"How did you know?" she whispered, trying not to look at him with the same expression.

"Me and Lok, we overheard your conversation, we didn't mean to spy on you, I'm sorry," he hung his head.

"Well I meant to spy on _you_!" she shot back harshly, but couldn't keep the pain she felt from these words out of her voice.

"I know," he agreed. "And I know why too. Just know something Zhalia, I care about you, I always will. And whether you think it was an act or not, you have a place here, please remember that," he sighed and looked away. Zhalia faltered, unsure of whether she still wanted to leave.

"Zhalia, please don't go!" Lok begged breathlessly, coming up behind Dante and speeding into her room. He grabbed hold of her arm. "Please," he whispered, acting like a child again.

"I don't know," she bit her lip. "I don't know what to do, I can't…I'm sorry Lok," Zhalia had never felt this confused, this lost or alone, in a long time. She didn't know what she was meant to do or how she was meant to feel. Damn, why did she have to spy on this lot?

"Zhalia?" Willow enquired sleepily from the doorway. "Where are you going, but you, I thought that Sophie…" she trailed off in hopelessness.

"I'm sorry," she sighed, twisting her arm out of Lok's grip and smiling sadly. "See you," she said finally as she jumped out into the night.

"Let her go," Dante told Lok, who looked heartbroken.

"She'll be back, I know it," Lok agreed, suddenly cheery, although he said it to himself more than anyone.

_**Thank you to NightStarlightWolf who made me laugh all the way through checking this chapter so I'm sorry for any mistakes as we are both in hysterics :D **_

_**Please review!**_


	15. The Departure

_**Hi, sorry I took so long, I had writers block, got hooked reading loads of really, really, really long fan fictions and I was busy with school stuff too (I hate statistics sososososo much!) Also, whilst writing this I managed to delete all the TV channels off my family's' TV so it was not picking up anything except static, yay-no TV! Luckily I managed to fix it before my parents came home. And that is an example of why you should not try to watch Huntik whist writing stories! The next time I worked on this chapter the house had a faulty carbon monoxide alarm in it, I was feeling ill for some reason and didn't realise the alarm was messed up; that was fun! (not!) :) But enough excuses and on with the story as I am not going to have much time to write this-thus the rambling. Though on the plus side I have a long chapter here for you all :)**_

_**E: Uh well, all those questions will be answered in this chapter I guess :)**_

_**Oh yeah, and I realised half way through I forgot Cherit again, so he's still out visiting gargoyle friends :D, don't worry, I'll ensure he decides to return in the next chapter. Also, sorry guys if I make Sophie too angry, I tried to keep her reaction realistic.**_

**The Departure**

Zhalia shivered and rubbed her arms, running away from Dante and the team in just a jeans and a shirt hadn't exactly been a good idea. Huh, maybe she would remember to take a coat next time she'd been discovered and was experiencing emotional turmoil. But wait, that was _not_ going to happen again, right? _No!_ She'd prove to Klaus that she was worth something and she'd go back to her old ways, no conscience and always completing the missions she was assigned. She was not going to be bested by idiots such as them again. _They're not idiots though, you know they're not! _a part of her brain protested but she silenced it, mostly.

_What would Klaus think of you now? _She asked herself. With the exception of the team, and that didn't count because she had deceived them, that was all part of the plan - to gain their trust, he was the only person who'd ever cared about her or had had any faith in her. Willow hadn't ever been lied to though, but she'd trusted her; Zhalia again questioned how that was supposed to work. She sighed in frustration, as nice as Willow was, she just didn't understand how the world worked. Although sometimes it seemed as if maybe there were two ways, Zhalia knew that the way she had been taught would be the one that prospered, you couldn't afford to be naïve, it would catch up with you eventually, that was what the streets had taught her, and later the Organisation too. What was she supposed to do exactly, change what she had always believed, just because of a few months? No, her way worked, had always worked, and she was more than capable of protecting herself, besides, she was hardly alone, she had Gareon.

She glanced around at the crumbling houses and dark alleyways, this could hardly be described as one of the nicer areas of Venice, or one of the safer. Although it was slightly creepy she wasn't afraid, there were worse areas she could have absentmindedly wandered into in the early hours of the morning and she had always been able to defend herself, okay when she was a kid, she hadn't been that great at it and had ended up getting beaten up a lot but Zhalia pushed that thought aside, all that mattered was_ now!_

Speaking of violent gangs, three men in their early twenties we're ambling around the corner, presumably drunk. She almost laughed out loud; this is what she could have ended up like if Klaus hadn't rescued her! She tried to walk casually around them in the narrow street but they blocked her path.

"Give us your money," one of them leered and she felt a temporary flicker of fear, but no, this wasn't like her childhood, if these guys even tried to steal a cent she'd kick their ass.

She raised an eyebrow, hand on her hip. "Why should I do that?" she challenged, standing her ground.

"Now, now we wouldn't want to have to kick in that pretty head of yours," another said threateningly.

"Save that for the next person," Zhalia snapped back. "I don't exactly see why I would let you anywhere near my head anyway,"

"Give us your money or you will regret it," the first one snapped, he looked the most hammered.

"I really don't think I will," she replied calmly and the three of them appeared to be getting ready to fight her, oh please, this was just too easy!

Just then her mobile rang – Klaus's ringtone. Well, that was just brilliant!

The three of them eyed her pocket. "How about you give us that phone as-" he didn't get very far; Zhalia silenced him with a quick punch to the temple, he fell to the ground, unconscious. She finished of the other two relatively quickly and answered the phone, just before it went to voicemail. She looked down at their sleeping figures with fake pity, she'd said she would kick their asses, not her fault they'd underestimated her.

"What's just happened?" Sophie asked in confusion, running into the room.

"Zhalia left," Willow explained miserably, sighing and slumping against a wall, fixing her eyes on the ground unhappily.

"Oh," said Sophie, her voice emotionless, except form some mild surprise, however, her face portrayed a mixture of elation, relief and a bit of guilt.

An awkward silence followed.

"So, are you going to tell Metz or Guggenheim?" she pressed.

Dante looked torn.

"But what if she comes back?" Willow exclaimed and Lok nodded frantically. "Dante we can't tell them, not yet!"

Sophie was a cross between shocked and horrified. "She spied, on _this _team, for quite a bit of time, who knows _how _many secrets she's uncovered; Dante, we _have to tell them_!" she protested.

"Well…" he grimaced.

"No we don't! Dante, why not wait for a bit, Zhalia'll never be able to return if we do!" Willow told him anxiously, her eyes wide.

"You want her to return?" Sophie stared at Willow incredulously. "Well of course you would wouldn't you? She being like 'a sister' to you and all. Dante, she has proven herself to be a threat, just as I'd said she'd be right from the beginning, you cannot let her return!"

"Sophie, she's not that bad…" Lok interrupted.

"Why are you all siding with her?" she demanded.

"'Cos you heard her story, besides Zhalia told me that weirdly she hadn't told Klaus everything, there were quite a few times that she decided to keep things hidden, for no apparent reason even to herself!"

"_Oh p-leease, _she only told you that so you'd trust her, she's just a manipulative, lying street-kid, who has no morals and tricks her way through life; she doesn't have an ounce of truth left in her."

"Don't talk about her like that!" Lok cried angrily.

"Sophie I think you should leave and get some rest," Dante ordered, his face calm but his eyes blazing. "And no, that is not optional." He cut across her, seeing that she was about to argue.

Sophie stalked out of the room with her head held high.

"Sophie," Willow followed her to the door. "I know you're better than this, I know you don't mean it, so I forgive you, and I'm sorry too. I realise that Zhalia's deceived us and maybe we are being a bit too lenient-"

"Just a _bit_?" Sophie exclaimed haughtily and narrowed her eyes.

"But for what it's worth," continued Willow on a harsher note. "I think you are acting like a spoilt brat, and sometimes, that can be worse than being a 'street-kid'"

"_Oh, I'm sorry," _Sophie retorted sarcastically and condescendingly, rolling her eyes and looking annoyed at everyone 'ganging up on her'.

"No you ain't," she replied as Sophie made her angry way out into the corridor. Willow sighed dejectedly; she had just lost two friends in the course of a matter of hours. Okay, she did have friends in England, but if she was honest, she kinda preferred it here. She hadn't told anyone her dreams, but she really wanted to stay in Italy and go to school with both Lok and Sophie, whilst learning to be a seeker at the same time; her job prospects had changed rapidly from 'stunt-double' to 'member of the Huntik Foundation' recently, although she supposed the former could still be a part time job, after all, Dante was a detective. There was still the problem of her family and friends though.

"I'm going to bed too, nobody disturb me until tomorrow evening at the earliest, I feel awful," Willow warned. "If anyone even opens my bedroom door, I'll kill them,"

Dante raised his eyebrows but let her go.

"See you in the morning then," Lok concluded fake-cheerfully. "Well that could've gone better." he turned to Dante. "I think Willow's right, we are being a bit too easy-going on Zhalia and a bit too tough on Sophie; but, Sophie is blowing things out of proportion too,"

Dante nodded. "I'll guess we'll have to see how things play out," he put in wisely. "Besides, I think Willow is going to be a great seeker. She'll strive to follow in Zhalia's footsteps even if she doesn't return to the team. It won't be the same, but it could have been worse,"

"Willow's already working on her threats," Lok shrugged.

Willow returned to her room and gazed at the blackness outside her window. _Seriously? _she asked herself. Making a split second decision she grabbed her backpack, flinging in some money, clothes and her passport. Quickly, she changed out of her pyjamas and into her normal checked shirt and jeans, grabbing a thin coat in the process, it was probably warm enough not to need one but she never knew. Silently, Willow slid open the window and leapt across to the tree, barely making it. Quietly cursing her grazed knees, broken nails and twisted ankle she slid down, mentally calculating roughly how far away Rotterdam was. Hmm, about a day on the train perhaps? Willow was _going _to find Zhalia, just to talk to her, to let her know that she wasn't alone and to prove to her that if she ever wanted to come back she could. To be honest the 'because unlike other people he always cares about me and he always protects me' part in the restaurant had freaked her out. Besides, who knew what Klaus would do to her when he realised she hadn't accomplished her mission. Father or not, he was still creepy and there was no way Willow would trust him, especially not where her friends were concerned.

"Klaus," Zhalia answered the call. "What happened?"

"Did you help them escape?" he asked.

"Do you have absolutely no faith in me?" she asked drily. "I was trying not to blow my cover, which involved agreeing with Dante and getting that idiotic kid to assume I was her friend and trying to help her, if I'd 've made one mistake she'd of instantly told one of the others, and _come on, _whatever you would have tried, they'd have all escaped eventually!"

"That's debatable," he shot back and she clenched her fist frustratedly. "You owe me everything Zhalia, you had nothing, you _were_ nothing until I helped you, why must you insist on betraying me like this?"

"I am not!" Zhalia said angrily, desperately tried to keep the hurt out of her voice, and succeeded for the most part. "I know you do._ Look_, we can have this conversation later," she told him. "Do you want anything else except to question my competence?"

He proceeded to tell her where he wanted to meet etc. and the basics of his plan. "I'll expect to see you tomorrow," he finished and hung up

Zhalia didn't know why she hadn't told him she'd been discovered, maybe it was because she was scared to disappoint him, or maybe it was because she still had hope that she could be part of their team again. She shook her head, what was she thinking? They'd never accept her, not really, she'd just be living in an even worse lie, besides, her life was with the Organisation and she should probably remember that. The team had Willow now and she would be a good seeker, anyway, she was much nicer than Zhalia was and they would all probably benefit from her positive attitude, Zhalia just brought everyone down, with her sarcasm and negative approach to life.

"Willow?" Sophie called, knocking on her bedroom door. "I'm sorry, I came to apologise, are you in there?" there was no answer. Okay then, Willow was either asleep or stubborn, both were not a problem.

Sophie entered the room; she needed to talk to her friend and couldn't sleep…okay…where was Willow meant to be exactly? She caught sight of a piece of paper on her bedside table. _Please tell me she hasn't done something stupid like run back to England, _Sophie rolled her eyes nervously and began to read it. '_Hey guys, I decided that I needed to find Zhalia so I am going to find her apartment, see you soon,' _was the brief and hardly thought out note. So, she was wrong then, Willow had done something so much worse.

So, now to catch a train.

_**Please, please, please review! So, what do you guys think's going to happen next? I really want to make fifty at least by the time this story is over, come on people, help me achieve my goal!**_


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